WIDOW OF KOLCHAK - Sofya Fedorovna Kolchak. According to the descriptions of contemporaries, she was tall, beautiful, and smart. Her involuntary rival Anna Vasilievna Timireva, who shared two last year his life, wrote about her this way: “She was a tall and slender woman, probably 38 years old. She was very different from other wives of naval officers, she was intellectual... She was very good and clever woman and she treated me well. She, of course, knew that there was nothing between me and Alexander Vasilyevich, but she also knew something else: what existed was very serious, she knew more than I did... Once, in Helsingfors, S.F. and I we went for a ride around the bay, the day seemed warm, but still I was frozen, and S.F. She took off the magnificent black and brown fox, put it on my shoulders and said: “This is a portrait of Alexander Vasilyevich.” I say: “I didn’t know he was so warm and soft.” She looked at me with disdain: “There is much you still don’t know, lovely young creature.” And to this day, when she has long been dead, it still seems to me that if we had a chance to meet, we would not be enemies. I’m glad that she didn’t have to go through everything that I had to go through.” But Sofya Fedorovna also had a chance to take a sip...
She was born in Ukraine - in the ancient town of Kamenets-Podolsk, in the region where the great-grandfather of her future husband was captured - Turkish general Kolchak Pasha. The brother of her maternal ancestor, Field Marshal Minich, took him prisoner. On her mother’s side, Daria Fedorovna Kamenskaya, there was another warlike ancestor - Chief General M.V. Berg, who defeated the troops of Frederick the Great in the Seven Years' War. According to his father, Fyodor Vasilyevich Omirov, the head of the Podolsk Treasury Chamber, the ancestors were much more peaceful - from the clergy.
Sofya Omirova brilliantly graduated from the Smolny Institute. She loved to read and studied philosophy. She knew seven languages. Moreover, she spoke English, French and German perfectly...
Where and how did they meet? I think at one of the balls in the Marine Corps or at the Smolnensky Institute. The courtship lasted several years, and before Lieutenant Kolchak departed for Baron Toll’s northern expedition, they were already engaged.
Miraculously, one of the letters addressed to her by her fiancé from the campaign was preserved: “Two months have passed since I left you, my infinitely dear, and the whole picture of our meeting is so vivid in front of me, so painful and painful, as if it were yesterday. How many sleepless nights I spent so much time in my cabin, walking from corner to corner, with so many thoughts, bitter, joyless... without you, my life has neither that meaning, nor that purpose, nor that joy. I brought all my best to your feet, as to my deity, I gave all my strength to you...”
The wedding took place in Irkutsk in 1904. The bride rushed to her beloved in Yakutia from the island of Capri - on ships, trains, deer, dogs - to meet him half-dead after a polar expedition. She brought with her provisions for all participants in that desperate campaign. They got married in the City-Irkutsk Archangel Michael Church hastily - the war with Japan broke out and the husband, a lieutenant, had already secured an appointment to Port Arthur. And already on the second day after the wedding in the Irkutsk Archangel Michael Church, Sophia saw off her betrothed - to the Far East, to Port Arthur, to the war...
This is how it was in their lives... Always...
From the very first hours of the German war that began in August 1914, Captain 2nd Rank Kolchak was at sea. And Sophia, who lived in front-line Libau with two children, hastily packed her suitcases under the cannonade of German batteries. Everyone said that Libau would be surrendered, and the families of Russian officers besieged the carriages of the train going to St. Petersburg. Having abandoned everything she had acquired for ten years, Kolchak’s wife, with children in her arms and pitiful travel belongings, still made it out of the front-line city.
She honestly bore the cross of an officer's wife: moving from place to place, other people's apartments, children's illnesses, escaping from shelling, straw widowhood and eternal fear for her husband - whether he would return from the campaign... And she did not receive any sovereign awards for this and honors. The husband received orders and military crosses. And she put crosses on the graves of her daughters. First, two-week-old Tanechka died, then, after escaping from besieged Libau, two-year-old Margarita died. Only the middle one survived - Slavik, Rostislav.
Her son and husband were at the center of her world. She only thought and worried about them. Sophia wrote to Kolchak:
“My dear Sasha! I tried to write to you from Slavushka’s dictation, but, as you can see, it all turns out the same: Mynyama papa, um tsybybe sofa (candy). Everything here is the same as before. Slavushka has two molars erupting... While sorting out my things, I examined your civilian dress: it is in order, except for the tuxedo, which was damaged by moths. How many beautiful things were given for next to nothing to the Tatar at your request.”
She wrote to him in Libau from her friends’ dacha near Yuryev, where she spent the summer with the children.
“June 2, 1912. Dear Sasha! Slavushka starts talking a lot, counting and sings songs to herself when she wants to sleep... How are you doing? Where are you now? How were the maneuvers and is your destroyer intact? I'm glad you're happy with your business. I'm afraid if there weren't a war, they talked a lot about it here. I read a novel about General Garibaldi in Italian. I embroider and count the days. Write to yourself. Did your management change after receiving half a billion for the fleet?
Your loving Sonya."
She spent a little over a year as an admiral, the wife of the commander Black Sea Fleet, the first lady of Sevastopol. Then - an almost vertical fall into the hell of underground life, emigrant lack of money, withering away in a foreign land... She did not reign in Sevastopol - she organized a sanatorium for the lower ranks, headed a ladies' circle for helping sick and wounded soldiers. And the husband, if he did not go on military campaigns, then stayed at the headquarters until midnight. The Black Sea Fleet under his command dominated the theater of military operations.
“...Despite the hardships of everyday life,” she wrote to him, “I think that in the end we will settle down and at least have a happy old age, but in the meantime, life is struggle and work, especially for you...” Alas, it was not destined for them was to have a happy old age...
The last time she hugged her husband was on the platform of the Sevastopol station. In May 1917, Kolchak left for Petrograd on a business trip, which, against his will, turned into a trip around the world, ending in death in Siberia. Before his death, Kolchak said: “Tell my wife in Paris that I bless my son.” From Irkutsk, these words actually reached Paris... But then, in Sevastopol, they did not say goodbye for long...
Sophia was waiting for him in Sevastopol, even when it became unsafe to stay there; she was hiding among the families of sailors she knew. And although her husband, Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, has not yet done anything such that he would be labeled an “enemy” working people“, there would be many people in the city who would willingly tell the security officers that the wife of the commander of the Black Sea Fleet is hiding there. Even though the ex... She understood all this perfectly, and therefore in the summer of 17th she sent her son, ten-year-old Rostik, to Kamenets-Podolsky, to live with childhood friends... And she remained in Sevastopol - to wait for her husband and tempt fate.
In December, the first wave of executions swept through the city. On the night of December 15-16, 23 officers were killed, including three admirals. Sofya Fedorovna listened with horror to every shot, to every loud exclamation on the street, rejoicing that her husband was now far away, and her son was in a quiet and safe place. She herself would have gone there long ago, but faithful people reported that Alexander Vasilyevich is again in Russia, that he is traveling along Siberian Railway and what will soon happen in Sevastopol. The first thought was to immediately go to meet him, to warn him that he was not allowed into the city - they would seize him and shoot him, they wouldn’t look at him that he was the son of a Sevastopol hero, that he himself was a hero of two wars, a Knight of St. George...
Now, like 13 years ago, she was again ready to rush towards him, through security cordons and partisan ambushes... She was waiting for him from this monstrously protracted business trip. She was waiting for him from polar expeditions. She was waiting for him to return from the war, she was waiting for him from Japanese captivity. But this Sevastopol expectation was the most hopeless. She almost knew that he would not return, and yet she waited, risking being recognized, arrested, and “wasted.”
She stopped waiting for him only when news came from Omsk: She was with Kolchak on the train. Anna. The wife of his classmate in the Naval Corps - captain 1st rank Sergei Timirev. Young, beautiful, passionate, beloved... And how cold and cruel Kolchak could be to the woman he once loved, to his wife! Everything that connected them was forgotten - only a distant, icy tone remained. Here are fragments of a letter sent by Kolchak in October 1919 to Sofya Fedorovna, where he demands that his wife not touch on her relationship with Anna Timireva. Honestly, it’s just terrifying, God forbid any woman gets this:
“Before my departure from Omsk to Tobolsk, I received your letter from 4-U1, and on the way to the city of Tara met with V.V. Romanov, who gave me your letter dated 8-U1. I'm returning after a detour Northern Front from Tobolsk to Omsk by boat along the Irtysh. I spent almost 21/2 months, from the beginning of August, traveling around the front. From the end of August, the armies began to retreat and, after persistent and difficult month-long battles, drove the Reds back to the Tobol River. The war took on a very difficult and fierce character, complicated by the autumn season, poor roads and increasing epidemics of typhus and relapsing fever...
It’s strange for me to read in your letters that you ask me about representation and some kind of position of yours as the wife of the Supreme Ruler. I ask you to understand how I myself understand my position and my tasks. They are defined by the old knightly motto... “Ich diene” (“I serve”). I serve the Motherland of my Great Russia as I served it all the time, commanding a ship, division or fleet.
I am not on any side a representative of the hereditary or elected authorities. I look at my title as a position of a purely official nature. Essentially, I am the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, having assumed the functions of the Supreme Civil Power, since for a successful struggle it is impossible to separate the latter from the functions of the former.
My first and main goal is to erase Bolshevism and everything connected with it from the face of Russia, to exterminate and destroy it. In fact, everything else I do is subject to this position. I do not set myself to solve the question of everything that should follow the completion of the first task; Of course, I think about this and outline well-known operational directions, but with regard to the program, I imitate Suvorov before the Italian campaign and, paraphrasing his answer to the Hofkriegsrat, I say: “I will start with the destruction of Bolshevism, and then as the Lord God pleases!”
That's all. Thus, I ask you to always be guided by these provisions in relation to me...
You write to me all the time about how I am not attentive and caring enough to you. I think I did everything I had to do. All I can now wish for you and Slavushka is that you would be safe and could live peacefully outside Russia during the current period of bloody struggle until Its revival. You cannot from any side, except my confidence in safety and peaceful life yours abroad, help me in this matter. Yours future life both figuratively and literally depends on the outcome of the struggle that I am waging. I know that you care about Slavushka, and from this side I am calm and confident that you will do everything that is necessary to raise him until the time when I will be able to take care of him myself and try to make him a servant of our Motherland And good soldier. I ask you to base his education on the history of great people, since their examples are the only means of developing in a child those inclinations and qualities that are necessary for service, and especially in the way I understand it. I talked to you a lot about this and I believe that you know my judgments and opinions on this subject.
Regarding money, I wrote that I cannot send more than 5,000 francs. per month, because when the exchange rate of our ruble falls, 8000 francs. will amount to a huge amount of about 100,000 rubles, and I cannot spend that kind of money, especially in foreign currency.
From my letter you will see that not only is there no role to be played in terms of representation and receptions, but, in my opinion, it is unacceptable and can put you in a very unpleasant position. Please be extremely careful in all cases, conversations and meetings with foreign and Russian representatives...
Please do not forget my position and do not allow yourself to write letters that I cannot read to the end, because I destroy any letter after the first phrase that violates decency. If you allow me to hear gossip about me, then I do not allow you to tell me about it. This warning will hopefully be the last.
Bye see you. Yours, Alexander."
I would have died immediately from horror and grief, but Kolchak was lucky with strong women.
Letter from A.V. Kolchak to his son:
"October 20, 1919
My dear sweet Slavushok.
I haven’t had letters from you for a long time, write to me, at least postcards of a few words.
I miss you very much, my dear Slavushok...
It is hard and difficult for me to bear such a huge work for the Motherland, but I will endure it to the end, until the victory over the Bolsheviks.
I wanted you too, when you grow up, to follow the path of serving the Motherland that I have followed all my life. Read military history and the deeds of great people and learn from them how to act - this is the only way to become a useful servant to the Motherland. There is nothing higher than the Motherland and serving Her.
The Lord God will bless you and protect you, my infinitely dear and sweet Slavushok. I kiss you deeply. Your dad".
In April, the Bolsheviks hastily left Crimea and the Kaiser’s troops entered Sevastopol. And again I had to hide. The Germans would hardly have left alone the wife of the Russian admiral, who inflicted such significant blows on them in the Baltic and Black Seas. Fortunately, no one reported her. This most terrible year in her life ended for the admiral’s wife only with the arrival of the British. Sofya Feodorovna was provided with money and, at the first opportunity, transported on “Her Majesty’s ship” to Constanta. From there she moved to Bucharest, where she released her son Rostislav from independent Ukraine, and soon left with him for Paris. Sevastopol-Constanza-Bucharest-Marseille-Lonjumeau... Another life began - without a husband, without a homeland, without money... Everything valuable from the survivors: silverware, her husband’s yacht prizes and even small glasses presented by the wardrooms of the ships, to whom he served - went to the pawnshop. She rented there gold medal husband, received from the Geographical Society for polar expeditions, and silver teaspoons, which were taken out of Sevastopol
Fortunately, she was not a white-handed lady; the large family, Smolny Institute, nomadic military life taught her to do a lot with her own hands. And she altered, refaced old things, knitted, gardened. But there was a catastrophic lack of money. One day, a miracle saved him from starvation: the son of Admiral Makarov, who fought under the banner of Kolchak in Siberia, sent a needy widow from America 50 dollars - all that he could scrape together from his income. In her semi-beggarly life this became a grandiose event. Here is a letter from Sofia Fedorovna to F. Nansen, who in 1900 in Norway A.V. Kolchak was preparing for his first polar expedition. In exile, Sofya Fedorovna went to many humiliations in order to educate her son and survive herself. She wrote similar letters to other people, and she was forced to master the polite, pleading intonation perfectly.
“Dear sir, still hoping without hope, I have taken the liberty of turning to you... Until now, we have been helped by a few modest, often wishing to remain anonymous, friends, but by more numerous enemies, merciless and cruel, whose machinations have ruined our lives my brave husband and brought me through apoplexy to the charity house. But I have my boy, whose life and future are now at stake. Our dear English friend, which has helped us for the past three years, can no longer provide support; and said that after April 10 of this year she would not be able to do anything for him. Young Kolchak studies at the Sorbonne... with the hope of getting back on his feet and taking his sick mother home. He has been studying for two years now, there are still two or three years left before he receives his diploma and graduates. great life. Exams will begin in May and will be completed by August. But how can we survive until this moment? We would only like to borrow some money for a while in order to transfer him 1000 francs a month - an amount sufficient for young man to make ends meet. I ask you for 5,000 francs, on which he can live and study until he passes his exams...
Remember that we are completely alone in this world, not a single country helps us, not a single city - only God, whom you saw in northern seas, where my late husband also visited and where there is a small island called Bennett Island, where the ashes of your friend Baron Toll lie, where the northern cape of these harsh lands is called Cape Sophia in honor of my wounded and tossing soul - then it is easier to look into the eyes of reality and understand the moral suffering of the unfortunate mother, whose boy on April 10 will be thrown out of life without a penny in his pocket to the very bottom of Paris. I hope you understand our situation and you will find these 5000 francs as quickly as possible, and may God bless you if so. Sofia Kolchak, widow of the Admiral."
In 1931, Rostislav entered the service of the Algerian Bank and married the daughter of Admiral Razvozov. Sofya Feodorovna died in 1956... Her almost inconspicuous trace remained on the map of Russia. In the distant East Siberian Sea, Bennett Island is frozen into ice. Its southeastern cape is named after Sophia, the bride of the desperate lieutenant.
How did the fate of A.N. Timirev after his wife left?
From May 3, 1918, he was a member of the White movement in Vladivostok. When in the fall A.V. Kolchak took the post of Supreme Ruler of Russia, Timirev served as an assistant in the city from November 23, 1918 to August 15, 1919 Supreme Commander in the naval unit, and until the spring of 1919 - commander naval forces in the Far East.
In Chinese emigration, Admiral Timirev sailed as a captain in the Shanghai merchant fleet, and in the early 1930s he was an active member of the “Guards Crew Association” - the “Court Company”, which met in his apartment when he presided over this select community for the first two years. Timirev wrote an interesting memoir in 1922: “Memoirs of a naval officer. Baltic Fleet during the war and revolution (1914-1918)." They were published in New York in 1961. In them, in a place of honor are stories about his midshipman classmate A.V. Kolchak. S.N. died Timirev May 31 (June 13), 1932 in Shanghai.
He did not find out that his only son was shot by the Bolsheviks.
Admiral Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak in history White movement- perhaps the most striking and tragic figure. Fearless polar explorer, a scientist-oceanographer, a brilliant naval officer, who in 1916, at less than 42 years old, became the youngest commander of the Black Sea Fleet. Most recently, "Motherland" wrote in detail (N10 for 2016) about the denouement of his fate - betrayal of the allies, arrest in Nizhneudinsk, execution in Irkutsk on February 7, 1920...
And what do we know about his wife, to whom the admiral addressed his last letter: “The Lord God will preserve and bless you and Slavushka”? I have been researching the life of Sofia Fedorovna Kolchak in exile for many years. I hope these notes will be of interest to Rodina.
The son is not responsible for his father
Sofya Fedorovna was 42 years old when she ended up in France with her nine-year-old son Rostislav - Slavushka, as he was affectionately called in the family.
Was there an opportunity to stay?
We need to remember Sevastopol in June 1917 - the unruly sailors openly called for disobedience to the officers. Commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral A.V. Kolchak was accused by the Provisional Government of failing to prevent a riot and, together with flag captain M.I. Smirnov summoned to Petrograd for explanations. Sofya Feodorovna and her son remain in the city, where revolutionaries destroy apartments every night and carry out lynchings against officers and their families.
What fear for the life of her little son must have been felt by a woman who had already mourned the loss of her children twice... Tanechka died as a baby in 1905, at which time Alexander Vasilyevich participated in the defense of the Port Arthur fortress. In 1914, when Sofya Feodorovna, again without a fighting husband, was getting out from Libau under German shelling with four-year-old Rostislav and two-year-old Margarita, her second daughter fell ill on the way and died...
For the time being, Sofya Kolchak was hiding in Sevastopol with reliable people under a false name. But after the October coup, the husband was chosen as the leader of the White movement and the Supreme Ruler of Russia - the main enemy of the Soviet Republic. One can imagine what fate awaited his family when the Red Army began its offensive in the spring of 1919.
The mother could not put her son in danger.
April 19, 1919 in the Saturday issue of the newspaper "Eco de Paris" under the heading " Last news" a note appeared: "The wife of Admiral Kolchak was forced to flee from Sevastopol."
The note reported that on April 18, the cruiser L Isonzo (flying the English flag) arrived in Marseille from Malta, on which among the passengers were “the wife of the Russian admiral Kolchak, who is currently playing very important role in the fight against the Bolsheviks." The newspaper's correspondent conducted a short interview with Sofia Fedorovna; she spoke about the difficult and dangerous situation in Crimea, which prompted her to seek help from the British authorities. She did not hide the fact that their escape with her son from Sevastopol was prepared.
I found confirmation of these words in one of the French archives. A personal card drawn up in the name of Sophie Koltchak nee Omiroff in 1926 indicated that she arrived in France on a diplomatic passport.
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Execution confirmed
Mother and son will spend several months in Paris. About it - small message"Madame Kolchak in Paris" in the daily newspaper "Le Petit Parisien" dated April 20, 1919. About this is Sophia’s news to her husband (letter dated May 16, 1919), which she transmitted through authorized persons to Siberia: they arrived safely, feeling good. I was worried that there had been no news for a long time, and in the signature she assured: “yours, with all my heart”...
She will carry this loyalty throughout her entire bitter life.
At first, Sophia received attention. Including from unscrupulous people who hoped to profit - at the expense of her high status and money that was regularly transferred to Kolchak’s wife from bank accounts holding funds of the White movement. Later, from January 1920, the Russian Mission in Paris transferred her 15,000 francs monthly.
She will not participate in the vibrant life of the emigrant community, although she will maintain some acquaintances. IN metric book The Paris Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky contains a record dated January 25, 1920: at the baptism of the daughter of an English subject, Maria Owen, the godmother was the wife of Admiral Sofya Fedorovna Kolchak. Still a wife...
On February 14, 1920, the newspaper Eco de Paris published several lines under the heading “Kolchak’s execution has been confirmed.”
Denunciation of a Parisian baker
The widow and son will leave for the south of France and settle in the town of Pau at the foot of the Pyrenees. Perhaps the special microclimate of these places suited Rostislav better. Villa Alexandrine, boulevard Guillemin"...
I visited the quiet aristocratic quarter of this city. I sat on a bench opposite a beautiful two-story mansion, peering out the windows. Was Sofia Feodorovna’s life quiet behind them? He had to send his son as a student to the Jesuit College - the oldest religious educational institution, "Immaculate Conception" (which currently exists). And the mother was tormented by excruciating headaches. The death of her husband aggravated the illness, which began in Russia, and was affected by her worries about the death of her daughters. Like many Russian emigrants, she tried to take up gardening, but the experience ended disastrously. And the debts of Kolchak’s widow kept growing, about which a certain baker from Pau did not fail to complain to Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré in the fall of 1922.
This denunciation had the most detrimental effect on Sofia Feodorovna’s financial situation. From the beginning of 1923, her monthly allowance was cut to 300 francs. This money was transferred to the family of the “dictator and reactionary” so that they would not die of hunger, he bitterly ironizes in a letter to General N.N. Yudenich Admiral V.K. Pilkin, who carried out financial transfers.
Sofya Fedorovna had to move from the aristocratic area to Montpensier Street (rue Montpensier). I also visited here, near an ordinary apartment building. A few steps away from it there is also a Jesuit college, where Rostislav Kolchak was educated from 1920 to 1926. The small one has also survived Orthodox Church, one of three oldest churches France, consecrated in honor of Alexander Nevsky. A deeply religious woman, Sofya Fedorovna went to services every day and prayed for the repose of the soul of her husband Sashenka.
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Another captivity of Kolchak
In 1927, Rostislav graduated from college and returned to Paris with his mother. I had to give it to my son a good education and the opportunity to start with dignity independent life. The young man successfully passed the exams and entered the High school in two specialties: political sciences and rights. But the mother did not have the funds to pay for education. Unable to work due to illness, Sofya Fedorovna now lived in the Russian House (senile home, as it is now called) in the town of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois. Here she will remain until her last days. For the sake of his son, in despair, he will write a letter for help to the famous Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen, with whom the young officer Kolchak trained before his first polar expedition...
Many people helped her. B.A. transferred money from America. Bakhmetyev, who played a prominent role in the political circles of the Russian emigration. General N.N. helped Yudenich and Kolchak’s former classmate in the Naval Corps, Rear Admiral A.A. Pogulyaev. In 1930, in the decade of the admiral’s death, the former manager of the Naval Ministry in the Kolchak government and his friend Rear Admiral M.I. Smirnov published a book of memories about him. Proceeds from sales were used to help the Kolchak family. "Maritime Journal" collected funds to complete Rostislav's education...
The mother's dream came true - her son received a diploma. And soon he got married. His chosen one was Ekaterina Razvozova, the daughter of the late Rear Admiral Alexander Vasilyevich Razvozov. The wedding took place on January 3, 1932 in the Church of St. Alexander Nevsky (now in the status of a cathedral) - the spiritual center of Russian emigrants in Paris on Daru Street.
Rostislav received a position in one of the banks in Algeria, where the young family had gone. Sofya Feodorovna remained to wait for news. A year later, good news came: a grandson was born, whom his parents named Alexander in honor of their illustrious grandfathers. Alas, tropical climate was not suitable for the baby, he became seriously ill, the doctors recommended urgently taking away the little one, who was getting weaker every day.
And again Sofya Fedorovna is working for her relatives. The daughter-in-law's godmother, a wealthy woman, lives in Switzerland - Alexander Kolchak's grandmother turns to her. And the godmother helps...
But Sofya Fedorovna was not given the opportunity to prevent a world disaster. In 1939, France entered the war with Germany, and Rostislav Kolchak was mobilized to the front. In June 1940, after the defeat French troops near Paris, the admiral's son was captured.
How was this captivity in the Kolchak family? What did the sick mother go through during those months of ignorance and waiting?
Inscription in French
In 1947, Rostislav, Ekaterina and minor Alexander received French citizenship. The son and his family settled in the city of Sainte-Mandé, on the border with Paris. Their mother-in-law, Maria Aleksandrovna Razvozova (née Osten-Driesen), lived in the apartment with them. The grandson and his father visited their grandmother in the Russian House. For periods she lived with them in Sainte-Mande.
Sofya Fedorovna never received French citizenship, remaining until the end with a refugee passport. The admiral's widow died on March 6, 1956 in a hospital in the small town of Longjumo. The family reported her death to the Russian Thought newspaper.
The farewell service took place in the Russian House Church. Among the 11,000 graves in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois cemetery (of which more than half are Russian), her last resting place is made of light stone. At the base of the Orthodox stone cross there is an inscription: “In memory of the admiral’s wife. S.F. Kolchak 1876-1956, nee Omirova, widow of the Supreme Ruler of Russia.”
The inscription is in French.
Sofya Fedorovna long years kept her husband’s last letter, which ended with the words: “The Lord God will protect and bless you and Slavushka.” Alexander Vasilyevich blessed his wife and son with life, and she fulfilled his order. A graduate of the Smolny Institute, who knew seven languages, she knew how to not only behave beautifully, but also steadfastly withstand the blows of fate in the name of the noble and main maternal goal - to preserve her offspring.
This woman deserves a bright and kind memory.
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What happened to the descendants of Alexander Kolchak
Son Rostislav spent a lot of time studying the Kolchak family. In memory of his father, in 1959 he wrote an essay on the family chronicle “Admiral Kolchak. His lineage and family.” His life was short, it affected his health German captivity- Rostislav Alexandrovich died in 1965. Ten years later, Ekaterina Kolchak passed away. Sofia Feodorovna's son and daughter-in-law are buried with her in the same grave in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery.
Grandson Alexander Rostislavovich (he asks to pronounce his patronymic in the old Russian manner - Rostislavich) Kolchak lives in Paris. He received a good education, speaks several languages, and draws beautifully. For some time he worked as a cartoonist in one of the Parisian newspapers. The humor of his works is laconic and simple, but at the same time, not everyone can make him smile. Part of A. R. Kolchak’s life is connected with America, where he worked for several years and where he found his passion - jazz. Alexander Rostislavich interesting companion, his speech with correct Russian captivates the listener. He looks like his grandfather not only in appearance. Sofya Fedorovna also noted the similarity of the characters of the two Alexanders.
And then there is Alexander Kolchak the third, as Alexander Rostislavich calls his son.
Little is said about the legal wife of Alexander Kolchak. Her love story is much less interesting and romantic than the white admiral’s romance with the married Anna Timireva, who left her husband and young son for the sake of a relationship with Alexander Vasilyevich. But the fact of the matter is that sometimes a beautiful relationship with a young mistress turns out to be less significant than the patient and selfless daily feat of a legal wife.
Even Anna Vasilievna Timireva, who became his common-law wife, could not say a bad word about Sofya Fedorovna Kolchak (nee Omirova).
The admiral’s mistress described Sophia Kolchak this way: “She was a tall and slender woman, probably 38 years old. She was very different from other wives of naval officers, she was intellectual... She was a very good and smart woman and treated me well. She, of course, knew that there was nothing between me and Alexander Vasilyevich, but she also knew something else: what existed was very serious, she knew more than I did... And to this day, when she has long been dead, everything to me it seems that if we had a chance to meet, we would not be enemies. I’m glad that she didn’t have to go through everything that I had to go through.”
Sofia Omirova was born in 1876 in the Ukrainian city of Kamenets-Podolsky into a noble family. The daughter of an actual Privy Councilor, the head of the Treasury Chamber, she received an aristocratic education and upbringing. Sophia graduated brilliantly Smolny Institute, knew seven languages.
Her marriage to military sailor Alexander Kolchak was very prim and traditional. At first, she liked Kolchak’s parents, who introduced her to their son. The future father-in-law and mother-in-law liked the beautiful, serious Sophia. Kolchak himself did not remain indifferent. By this time, she was already orphaned and earned her living by teaching foreign languages.
The future admiral liked the independent young lady. In her he saw the ideal officer's wife. And I was not mistaken.
Of course, Kolchak was not led by pure calculation. Here is an excerpt from one of his letters to his fiancée: “Two months have passed since I left you, my infinitely dear, and the whole picture of our meeting is so vivid in front of me, so painful and painful, as if it were yesterday. How many sleepless nights I spent in my cabin, walking from corner to corner, so many thoughts, bitter, joyless... without you my life has neither the meaning, nor the purpose, nor the joy. I brought all my best to your feet, as to my deity, I gave all my strength to you..."
Alexander sent a letter to Sophia from a northern expedition that lasted several years. He named an island in the Litke archipelago after his beloved Sophia.
They got married in 1904 in Irkutsk. He was 29, she was 28. Quite a respectable age for marriage “with a wide with open eyes" Four whole years have passed since the couple met. Sophia came to her own wedding to meet the groom, half dead after a long expedition. She brought with her provisions for the participants of the campaign. But a few days after the wedding, the young husband had already gone to war with Japan.
The husband left for Port Arthur, the wife returned to St. Petersburg. There Sophia gave birth to their first daughter, whom her father was not destined to see: the girl died without living even a month.
In 1910, the couple had a son, Rostislav. In 1912, they became the parents of their last common child - daughter Margarita.
Kolchak was absent from home almost all the time: wars alternated with polar expeditions. The wife’s feelings were supported by warm correspondence: “Dear Sasha! Slavushka begins to talk a lot, count and sing songs to herself when she wants to sleep. The clean country air is at first downright intoxicating. Slavushka, apparently, really likes it here, he keeps asking to “go for a walk.”
I'm very sorry, but all this fuss and moving was worth it big money. After all, 200 rubles a month was enough for the bare necessities, and then there were the costs of repairing my and Slavushkina’s clothes. How are you doing? Where are you now? How were the maneuvers and is your destroyer intact? I'm glad you're happy with your business. I'm afraid if there weren't a war, they talked a lot about it here. But I don’t read newspapers and don’t want to know anything. I read a novel about General Garibaldi in Italian. I also embroider, speak German and count the days. Write to yourself. Did your management change after receiving half a billion for the fleet?
Your loving Sonya."
Sophia and her two children met the war of 1914 in Libau (today it is seaport Liepaja in Latvia). The husband, naturally, went to the place of hostilities. And the wife, having learned that Libau would soon be occupied by the Germans, fled to the east with two children, abandoning all the property acquired over 10 years.
In Gatchina, daughter Margarita died, who caught a cold during a hasty flight from Libau. Sofya Fedorovna was left alone with her little son. The husband was at war - no one could console the poor woman in her grief.
Then Sophia rushed after her husband to Helsingfors (now Helsinki). But, unfortunately, the husband was not delighted with her devotion, because during his wife’s absence he began an affair with Anna Timireva, the wife of his colleague, who was 19 years younger than Kolchak.
Today they talk more about this love story, which looks very romantic. But Rostislav Kolchak, the admiral’s son, assessed this connection very harshly: “Their romance is beautiful for novelists. But when two people, married to others in church, who consider themselves Orthodox, indulge in their impulses in front of everyone, it looked strange!”
In 1917, Kolchak went to the United States to consult the local military, and left his disgusted wife and son in unsafe Sevastopol. Seeing the horror the country was plunging into, Sofya Fedorovna sent Rostislav to friends in Kamenets-Podolsky. And she began to selflessly help people - she organized treatment for the wounded.
Then the unfortunate Sofya Fedorovna had to hide from the Bolsheviks under a false name. Meanwhile, the husband returned to his homeland, accompanied by his young mistress Timireva.
Kolchak wrote cold and business letters to his wife, where high words about love for the Motherland alternated with somewhat lengthy instructions “on the order of action”: “All I can now wish for you and Slavushka is that you would be safe and could live calmly outside Russia during the present period of bloody struggle until Its revival. You cannot help me in this matter in any way, other than my confidence in your safety and your quiet life abroad.”
Sophia was able to find her son in Ukraine and flee from her homeland. In the end, the admiral's family settled in Paris, where they, like many emigrants, endured years of terrible ordeal.
Meanwhile in 1920 defeated Kolchak was shot. Before his death, he said that he was blessing his son.
Whatever Sofya Feodorovna did to properly raise her son! And she achieved her goal: Rostislav graduated from the Sorbonne and became a financier. During World War II he fought against the Germans. His descendants today live in France and the USA.
Sofya Fedorovna died in 1956. In the last years before her death, she raised funds for a monument to the soldiers of the White Army at the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery. The name of Alexander Kolchak is also carved on the obelisk.
Maria Konyukova
After the post about Timireva, I couldn’t keep silent. Post about Sofya Kolchak - to increase goodness in the world
Original taken from mysea in Wife of the Supreme Ruler
WIDOW OF KOLCHAK - Sofya Fedorovna Kolchak.
According to the descriptions of contemporaries, she was tall, beautiful, and smart. Her involuntary rival Anna Vasilievna Timireva, who shared the last two years of his life with the admiral, wrote about her like this: “She was a tall and slender woman, probably 38 years old. She was very different from other wives of naval officers, she was intellectual... She was a very good and smart woman and treated me well. She, of course, knew that there was nothing between me and Alexander Vasilyevich, but she also knew something else: what existed was very serious, she knew more than I did... Once, in Helsingfors, S.F. and I we went for a ride around the bay, the day seemed warm, but still I was frozen, and S.F. She took off the magnificent black and brown fox, put it on my shoulders and said: “This is a portrait of Alexander Vasilyevich.” I say: “I didn’t know he was so warm and soft.” She looked at me with disdain: “There is much you still don’t know, lovely young creature.” And to this day, when she has long been dead, it still seems to me that if we had a chance to meet, we would not be enemies. I’m glad that she didn’t have to go through everything that I had to go through.”
But Sofya Fedorovna also had a chance to take a sip...
She was born in Ukraine - in the ancient town of Kamenets-Podolsk, in the region where the great-grandfather of her future husband, the Turkish general Kolchak Pasha, was captured. The brother of her maternal ancestor, Field Marshal Minich, took him prisoner. On her mother’s side, Daria Fedorovna Kamenskaya, there was another warlike ancestor - Chief General M.V. Berg, who defeated the troops of Frederick the Great in the Seven Years' War. According to his father, Fyodor Vasilyevich Omirov, the head of the Podolsk Treasury Chamber, the ancestors were much more peaceful - from the clergy.
Sofya Omirova brilliantly graduated from the Smolny Institute. She loved to read and studied philosophy. She knew seven languages. Moreover, she spoke English, French and German perfectly...
Where and how did they meet? I think at one of the balls in the Marine Corps or at the Smolnensky Institute. The courtship lasted several years, and before Lieutenant Kolchak departed for Baron Toll’s northern expedition, they were already engaged.
Miraculously, one of the letters addressed to her by her fiancé from the campaign was preserved: “Two months have passed since I left you, my infinitely dear, and the whole picture of our meeting is so vivid in front of me, so painful and painful, as if it were yesterday. How many sleepless nights I spent in my cabin, walking from corner to corner, so many thoughts, bitter, joyless... without you, my life has neither the meaning, nor the goal, nor the joy. I brought all my best to your feet, as to my deity, I gave all my strength to you...”
The wedding took place in Irkutsk in 1904. The bride rushed to her beloved in Yakutia from the island of Capri - on ships, trains, deer, dogs - to meet him half-dead after a polar expedition. She brought with her provisions for all participants in that desperate campaign. They got married in the City-Irkutsk Archangel Michael Church hastily - the war with Japan broke out and the husband, a lieutenant, had already secured an appointment to Port Arthur. And already on the second day after the wedding in the Irkutsk Archangel Michael Church, Sophia saw off her betrothed - to the Far East, to Port Arthur, to the war...
This is how it was in their lives... Always...
From the very first hours of the German war that began in August 1914, Captain 2nd Rank Kolchak was at sea. And Sophia, who lived in front-line Libau with two children, hastily packed her suitcases under the cannonade of German batteries. Everyone said that Libau would be surrendered, and the families of Russian officers besieged the carriages of the train going to St. Petersburg. Having abandoned everything she had acquired for ten years, Kolchak’s wife, with children in her arms and pitiful travel belongings, still made it out of the front-line city.
She honestly bore the cross of an officer's wife: moving from place to place, other people's apartments, children's illnesses, escaping from shelling, straw widowhood and eternal fear for her husband - whether he would return from the campaign... And she did not receive any sovereign awards for this and honors. The husband received orders and military crosses. And she put crosses on the graves of her daughters. First, two-week-old Tanechka died, then, after escaping from besieged Libau, two-year-old Margarita died. Only the middle one survived - Slavik, Rostislav.
Her son and husband were at the center of her world. She only thought and worried about them. Sophia wrote to Kolchak:
“My dear Sasha! I tried to write to you from Slavushka’s dictation, but, as you can see, it all turns out the same: Mynyama papa, um tsybybe sofa (candy). Everything here is the same as before. Slavushka has two molars erupting... While sorting out my things, I examined your civilian dress: it is in order, except for the tuxedo, which was damaged by moths. How many beautiful things were given for next to nothing to the Tatar at your request.”
She wrote to him in Libau from her friends’ dacha near Yuryev, where she spent the summer with the children.
“June 2, 1912. Dear Sasha! Slavushka starts talking a lot, counting and sings songs to herself when she wants to sleep... How are you doing? Where are you now? How were the maneuvers and is your destroyer intact? I'm glad you're happy with your business. I'm afraid if there weren't a war, they talked a lot about it here. I read a novel about General Garibaldi in Italian. I embroider and count the days. Write to yourself. Did your management change after receiving half a billion for the fleet?
Your loving Sonya."
She spent a little over a year as an admiral, the wife of the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, and the first lady of Sevastopol. Then - an almost vertical fall into the hell of underground life, emigrant lack of money, withering away in a foreign land... She did not reign in Sevastopol - she organized a sanatorium for the lower ranks, headed a ladies' circle for helping sick and wounded soldiers. And the husband, if he did not go on military campaigns, then stayed at the headquarters until midnight. The Black Sea Fleet under his command dominated the theater of military operations.
“...Despite the hardships of everyday life,” she wrote to him, “I think that in the end we will settle down and at least have a happy old age, but in the meantime, life is struggle and work, especially for you...” Alas, it was not destined for them was to have a happy old age...
The last time she hugged her husband was on the platform of the Sevastopol station. In May 1917, Kolchak left for Petrograd on a business trip, which, against his will, turned into a trip around the world, ending in death in Siberia. Before his death, Kolchak said: “Tell my wife in Paris that I bless my son.” From Irkutsk, these words actually reached Paris... But then, in Sevastopol, they did not say goodbye for long...
Sophia was waiting for him in Sevastopol, even when it became unsafe to stay there; she was hiding among the families of sailors she knew. And even though her husband, Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, has not yet done anything to earn him the label of “enemy of the working people,” there would be many people in the city who would willingly tell the security officers that the wife of the commander of the Black Sea Fleet is hiding there. Even though the ex... She understood all this perfectly, and therefore in the summer of 17th she sent her son, ten-year-old Rostik, to Kamenets-Podolsky, to live with childhood friends... And she remained in Sevastopol - to wait for her husband and tempt fate.
In December, the first wave of executions swept through the city. On the night of December 15-16, 23 officers were killed, including three admirals. Sofya Fedorovna listened with horror to every shot, to every loud exclamation on the street, rejoicing that her husband was now far away, and her son was in a quiet and safe place. She herself would have left there long ago, but faithful people reported that Alexander Vasilyevich was again in Russia, that he was traveling along the Siberian Railway and that he would soon be in Sevastopol. The first thought was to immediately go to meet him, to warn him that he was not allowed into the city - they would seize him and shoot him, they wouldn’t look at him that he was the son of a Sevastopol hero, that he himself was a hero of two wars, a Knight of St. George...
Now, like 13 years ago, she was again ready to rush towards him, through security cordons and partisan ambushes... She was waiting for him from this monstrously protracted business trip. She was waiting for him from polar expeditions. She was waiting for him to return from the war, she was waiting for him from Japanese captivity. But this Sevastopol expectation was the most hopeless. She almost knew that he would not return, and yet she waited, risking being recognized, arrested, and “wasted.”
She stopped waiting for him only when news came from Omsk: She was with Kolchak on the train. Anna. The wife of his classmate in the Naval Corps - captain 1st rank Sergei Timirev. Young, beautiful, passionate, beloved... And how cold and cruel Kolchak could be to the woman he once loved, to his wife! Everything that connected them was forgotten - only a distant, icy tone remained. Here are fragments of a letter sent by Kolchak in October 1919 to Sofya Fedorovna, where he demands that his wife not touch on her relationship with Anna Timireva.
Honestly, it’s just terrifying, God forbid any woman gets this:
“Before my departure from Omsk to Tobolsk, I received your letter from 4-U1, and on the way to Tara I met with V.V. Romanov, who gave me your letter dated 8-U1. I am returning after a detour of the Northern Front from Tobolsk to Omsk by steamship along the Irtysh. I spent almost 21/2 months, from the beginning of August, traveling around the front. From the end of August, the armies began to retreat and, after persistent and difficult month-long battles, drove the Reds back to the Tobol River. The war took on a very difficult and fierce character, complicated by the autumn season, poor roads and increasing epidemics of typhus and relapsing fever...
It’s strange for me to read in your letters that you ask me about representation and some kind of position of yours as the wife of the Supreme Ruler. I ask you to understand how I myself understand my position and my tasks. They are defined by the old knightly motto... “Ich diene” (“I serve”). I serve the Motherland of my Great Russia as I served it all the time, commanding a ship, division or fleet.
I am not on any side a representative of hereditary or elected authorities. I look at my title as a position of a purely official nature. Essentially, I am the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, who has assumed the functions of the Supreme Civil Power, since for a successful struggle the latter cannot be separated from the functions of the former.
My first and main goal is to erase Bolshevism and everything connected with it from the face of Russia, to exterminate and destroy it. In fact, everything else I do is subject to this position. I do not set myself to solve the question of everything that should follow the completion of the first task; Of course, I think about this and outline well-known operational directions, but with regard to the program, I imitate Suvorov before the Italian campaign and, paraphrasing his answer to the Hofkriegsrat, I say: “I will start with the destruction of Bolshevism, and then as the Lord God pleases!”
That's all. Thus, I ask you to always be guided by these provisions in relation to me...
You write to me all the time about how I am not attentive and caring enough to you. I think I did everything I had to do. All I can now wish for you and Slavushka is that you would be safe and could live peacefully outside Russia during the current period of bloody struggle until Its revival. You cannot help me in this matter in any way, other than my confidence in your safety and your quiet life abroad. Your future life, both figuratively and literally, depends on the outcome of the struggle that I am waging. I know that you care about Slavushka, and from this side I am calm and confident that you will do everything that is necessary to raise him until the time when I will be able to take care of him myself and try to make him a servant of our Motherland and a good soldier. I ask you to base his education on the history of great people, since their examples are the only means of developing in a child those inclinations and qualities that are necessary for service, and especially in the way I understand it. I talked to you a lot about this and I believe that you know my judgments and opinions on this subject.
Regarding money, I wrote that I cannot send more than 5,000 francs. per month, because when the exchange rate of our ruble falls, 8000 francs. will amount to a huge amount of about 100,000 rubles, and I cannot spend that kind of money, especially in foreign currency.
From my letter you will see that not only is there no role to be played in terms of representation and receptions, but, in my opinion, it is unacceptable and can put you in a very unpleasant position. Please be extremely careful in all cases, conversations and meetings with foreign and Russian representatives...
Please do not forget my position and do not allow yourself to write letters that I cannot read to the end, because I destroy any letter after the first phrase that violates decency. If you allow me to hear gossip about me, then I do not allow you to tell me about it. This warning will hopefully be the last.
Bye see you. Yours, Alexander."
I would have died immediately from horror and grief, but Kolchak was lucky with strong women.
Letter from A.V. Kolchak to his son:
"October 20, 1919
My dear sweet Slavushok.
I haven’t had letters from you for a long time, write to me, at least postcards of a few words.
I miss you very much, my dear Slavushok...
It is hard and difficult for me to bear such a huge work for the Motherland, but I will endure it to the end, until the victory over the Bolsheviks.
I wanted you too, when you grow up, to follow the path of serving the Motherland that I have followed all my life. Read military history and the deeds of great people and learn from them how to act - this is the only way to become a useful servant to the Motherland. There is nothing higher than the Motherland and serving Her.
The Lord God will bless you and protect you, my infinitely dear and sweet Slavushok. I kiss you deeply. Your dad".
In April, the Bolsheviks hastily left Crimea and the Kaiser’s troops entered Sevastopol. And again I had to hide. The Germans would hardly have left alone the wife of the Russian admiral, who inflicted such significant blows on them in the Baltic and Black Seas. Fortunately, no one reported her. This most terrible year in her life ended for the admiral’s wife only with the arrival of the British. Sofya Feodorovna was provided with money and, at the first opportunity, transported on “Her Majesty’s ship” to Constanta. From there she moved to Bucharest, where she released her son Rostislav from independent Ukraine, and soon left with him for Paris. Sevastopol-Constanza-Bucharest-Marseille-Lonjumeau... Another life began - without a husband, without a homeland, without money... Everything valuable from the survivors: silverware, her husband’s yacht prizes and even small glasses offered by the ships’ wardrooms, where he served - went to the pawnshop. She donated there her husband’s gold medal, received from the Geographical Society for polar expeditions, and silver teaspoons, which she managed to take out from Sevastopol
Fortunately, she was not a white-handed lady; a large family, the Smolny Institute, and nomadic military life taught her to do a lot with her own hands. And she altered, refaced old things, knitted, gardened. But there was a catastrophic lack of money. One day, a miracle saved him from starvation: the son of Admiral Makarov, who fought under the banner of Kolchak in Siberia, sent a needy widow from America 50 dollars - all that he could scrape together from his income. In her semi-beggarly life this became a grandiose event. Here is a letter from Sofia Fedorovna to F. Nansen, who in 1900 in Norway A.V. Kolchak was preparing for his first polar expedition. In exile, Sofya Fedorovna went to many humiliations in order to educate her son and survive herself. She wrote similar letters to other people, and she was forced to master the polite, pleading intonation perfectly.
“Dear sir, still hoping without hope, I have taken the liberty of turning to you... Until now, we have been helped by a few modest, often wishing to remain anonymous, friends, but by more numerous enemies, merciless and cruel, whose machinations have ruined our lives my brave husband and brought me through apoplexy to the charity house. But I have my boy, whose life and future are now at stake. Our dear English friend, who has helped us for the past three years, can no longer provide support; and said that after April 10 of this year she would not be able to do anything for him. Young Kolchak studies at the Sorbonne... with the hope of getting back on his feet and taking his sick mother home. He has been studying for two years already, there are still two or three years left before he receives his diploma and goes out into the big life. Exams will begin in May and will be completed by August. But how can we survive until this moment? We would only like to borrow some money for a while to transfer him 1000 francs a month - an amount sufficient for a young man to make ends meet. I ask you for 5,000 francs, on which he can live and study until he passes his exams...
Remember that we are completely alone in this world, not a single country helps us, not a single city - only God, whom you saw in the northern seas, where my late husband also visited and where there is a small island called Bennett Island, where the ashes rest Your friend Baron Toll, where the northern cape of these harsh lands is named Cape Sophia in honor of my wounded and tossing soul - then it is easier to look into the eyes of reality and understand the moral suffering of the unfortunate mother, whose boy on April 10 will be thrown out of life without a penny in his pocket to the very bottom Paris. I hope you understand our situation and you will find these 5000 francs as quickly as possible, and may God bless you if so. Sofia Kolchak, widow of the Admiral."
In 1931, Rostislav entered the service of the Algerian Bank and married the daughter of Admiral Razvozov. Sofya Feodorovna died in 1956... Her almost inconspicuous trace remained on the map of Russia. In the distant East Siberian Sea, Bennett Island is frozen into ice. Its southeastern cape is named after Sophia, the bride of the desperate lieutenant.
How did the fate of A.N. Timirev after his wife left?
From May 3, 1918, he was a member of the White movement in Vladivostok. When in the fall A.V. Kolchak took the post of Supreme Ruler of Russia, Timirev from November 23, 1918 to August 15, 1919 served in the city as assistant to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief for the naval unit, and until the spring of 1919 - commander of naval forces in the Far East.
In Chinese emigration, Admiral Timirev sailed as a captain in the Shanghai merchant fleet, and in the early 1930s he was an active member of the “Guards Crew Association” - the “Court Company”, which met in his apartment when he presided over this select community for the first two years. Timirev wrote an interesting memoir in 1922: “Memoirs of a naval officer. The Baltic Fleet during the war and revolution (1914-1918)". They were published in New York in 1961. In them, in a place of honor are stories about his midshipman classmate A.V. Kolchak. S.N. died Timirev May 31 (June 13), 1932 in Shanghai.
He did not find out that his only son was shot by the Bolsheviks.
Kolchak Alexander Vasilievich - a prominent military leader and statesman Russia, polar explorer. During civil war entered historical chronicles as the leader of the White movement. Assessment of Kolchak’s personality is one of the most controversial and tragic pages Russian history 20th century.
ObzorfotoAlexander Kolchak was born on November 16, 1874 in the village of Aleksandrovskoye in the suburbs of St. Petersburg, in the family hereditary nobles. The Kolchakov family gained fame in the military field, serving the Russian Empire for many centuries. His father was a hero of the defense of Sevastopol during the Crimean campaign.
Education
Until the age of 11 I received home education. In 1885-88. Alexander studied at the 6th gymnasium in St. Petersburg, where he graduated from three classes. Then he entered the Naval Cadet Corps, where he showed excellent success in all subjects. How best student By scientific knowledge and behavior he was enrolled in the class of midshipmen and appointed sergeant major. Graduated Cadet Corps in 1894 with the rank of midshipman.
Carier start
From 1895 to 1899, Kolchak served in the military Baltic and Pacific Fleet, committed three times trip around the world. I was studying independent research Pacific Ocean, most interested in its northern territories. In 1900, the capable young lieutenant was transferred to the Academy of Sciences. At this time, the first scientific works began to appear, in particular, an article was published about his observations of sea currents. But the goal of the young officer is not only theoretical, but also practical research - he dreams of going on one of the polar expeditions.
Blogger Interested in his publications, famous explorer Arctic baron E.V. Toll invites Kolchak to take part in the search for the legendary “Sannikov Land”. Having gone in search of the missing Toll, he takes a whaleboat from the schooner "Zarya", and then makes a risky journey on dog sleds and finds the remains of the lost expedition. During this dangerous campaign, Kolchak caught a severe cold and miraculously survived severe pneumonia.
Russo-Japanese War
In March 1904, immediately after the start of the war, having not fully recovered from his illness, Kolchak achieved a referral to besieged Port Arthur. The destroyer "Angry", under his command, took part in the installation of barrage mines dangerously close to the Japanese raid. Thanks to these hostilities, several enemy ships were blown up.
Letanosti IN recent months During the siege, he commanded the coastal artillery, which inflicted significant damage on the enemy. During the fighting he was wounded, and after the capture of the fortress he was captured. In recognition of him morale, command Japanese army left Kolchak with weapons and released him from captivity. For his heroism he was awarded:
- St. George's weapon;
- Orders of St. Anne and St. Stanislav.
The struggle to rebuild the fleet
After treatment in the hospital, Kolchak receives six months' leave. Sincerely experiencing the virtually complete loss of his native fleet in the war with Japan, he is actively involved in the work of reviving it.
Gossip In June 1906, Kolchak headed a commission at the Naval General Staff to determine the reasons that led to the defeat at Tsushima. As a military expert, he often spoke at hearings State Duma with justification to allocate the necessary funding.
His project, dedicated to the realities of the Russian fleet, became theoretical basis of all Russian military shipbuilding in the pre-war period. As part of its implementation, Kolchak in 1906-1908. personally supervises the construction of four battleships and two icebreakers.
For his invaluable contribution to the study of the Russian North, Lieutenant Kolchak was elected a member of the Russian Geographical Society. The nickname “Kolchak the Polar” stuck to him.
At the same time, Kolchak continues his efforts to systematize materials from past expeditions. The work he published in 1909 on the ice cover of the Kara and Siberian seas is recognized as a new stage in the development of polar oceanography in the study of ice cover.
World War I
The Kaiser's command was preparing for the blitzkrieg of St. Petersburg. Henry of Prussia, commander German fleet, already in the first days of the war, he hoped to cross the Gulf of Finland to the capital and subject it to hurricane fire from powerful guns.
Destroying important objects, he intended to land troops, capture St. Petersburg and put an end to Russia’s military claims. The implementation of Napoleonic projects was prevented by the strategic experience and brilliant actions of Russian naval officers.
Gossip Given the significant superiority in the number of German ships, mine warfare tactics were recognized as the initial strategy to combat the enemy. The Kolchak division already during the first days of war placed 6 thousand mines in the water area Gulf of Finland. Skillfully placed mines became a reliable shield for the defense of the capital and thwarted the plans of the German fleet to capture Russia.
Subsequently, Kolchak persistently defended plans for the transition to more aggressive actions. Already at the end of 1914, a daring operation was undertaken to mine the Danzig Bay directly off the enemy’s coast. As a result of this operation, 35 enemy warships were blown up. Successful actions naval commander determined his subsequent promotion.
Sanmati In September 1915, he was appointed commander of the Mine Division. At the beginning of October, he undertook a bold maneuver to land troops on the shore of the Gulf of Riga to help the armies of the Northern Front. The operation was carried out so successfully that the enemy did not even realize that the Russians were present.
In June 1916, A.V. Kolchak was promoted by the Sovereign to the rank of Commander-in-Chief of the Black Sea Fleet. In the photo, the talented naval commander is captured in full dress uniform with all the military regalia.
Revolutionary time
After February Revolution Kolchak was faithful to the emperor to the end. Hearing the offer of the revolutionary sailors to surrender their weapons, he threw his award saber overboard, arguing for his action with the words: “Even the Japanese did not take away my weapons, I will not give them to you either!”
Arriving in Petrograd, Kolchak blamed the ministers of the Provisional Government for the collapse own army and countries. After which the dangerous admiral was actually sent into political exile at the head of the allied military mission to America.
In December 1917, he asked the British government to enroll in military service. However, certain circles are already betting on Kolchak as an authoritative leader capable of rallying the liberation struggle against Bolshevism.
In the south of Russia it operated Volunteer Army, in Siberia and the East there were many disparate governments. Having united in September 1918, they created the Directory, the inconsistency of which inspired distrust in the wider officer and business circles. They needed a “strong hand” and, having carried out a white coup, invited Kolchak to accept the title of Supreme Ruler of Russia.
Goals of the Kolchak government
Kolchak’s policy was to restore foundations Russian Empire. His decrees banned all extremist parties. The Siberian government wanted to achieve reconciliation of all population groups and parties, without the participation of left and right radicals. Was prepared economic reform, which involves the creation of an industrial base in Siberia.
The greatest victories of Kolchak’s army were achieved in the spring of 1919, when it occupied the territory of the Urals. However, after the successes, a series of failures began, caused by a number of miscalculations:
- Kolchak’s incompetence in the problems of government;
- refusal to resolve the agrarian question;
- partisan and Socialist Revolutionary resistance;
- political disagreements with allies.
In November 1919, Kolchak was forced to leave Omsk; in January 1920 he gave his powers to Denikin. As a result of the betrayal of the allied Czech Corps, it was handed over to the Bolshevik Revolutionary Committee, which seized power in Irkutsk.
Death of Admiral Kolchak
Fate legendary personality ended tragically. Some historians cite the cause of death as a personal secret order, fearing his release by Kappel’s troops rushing to the rescue. A.V. Kolchak was shot on February 7, 1920 in Irkutsk.
In the 21st century, the negative assessment of Kolchak’s personality has been revised. His name is immortalized on memorial plaques, monuments, in feature films.
Personal life
Kolchak's wife, Sofya Omirova, is a hereditary noblewoman. Due to the protracted expedition, she waited for her fiancé for several years. Their wedding took place in March 1904 in the Irkutsk church.
Three children were born in the marriage:
- The first daughter, born in 1905, died in infancy.
- Son Rostislav, born March 9, 1910.
- Daughter Margarita, born in 1912, died at the age of two.
In 1919, Sofya Omirova, with the help of British allies, emigrated with her son to Constanta, and subsequently to Paris. She died in 1956 and was buried in the cemetery of Russian Parisians.
Son Rostislav - an employee of the Algerian Bank, participated in battles with the Germans on the side French army. Died in 1965. Kolchak's grandson - Alexander, born in 1933, lives in Paris.
The last years of his life, Kolchak’s actual wife became his last love. She met the admiral in 1915 in Helsingfors, where she arrived with her husband, a naval officer. After the divorce in 1918, she followed the admiral. She was arrested along with Kolchak, and after his execution she spent almost 30 years in various exiles and prisons. She was rehabilitated and died in 1975 in Moscow.
- Alexander Kolchak was baptized in Trinity Church, which is known today as Kulich and Easter.
- During one of his polar campaigns, Kolchak named the island in honor of his bride, who was waiting for him in the capital. Cape Sophia retains the name given to him to this day.
- A.V. Kolchak became the fourth polar navigator in history to receive highest award Geographical Society - Constantine Medal. Before him, the great F. Nansen, N. Nordenskiöld, N. Jurgens received this honor.
- The maps that Kolchak compiled were used Soviet sailors until the end of the 1950s.
- Before his death, Kolchak did not accept the offer to blindfold him. He gave his cigarette case to the Cheka officer in charge of the execution.