reprisals were being exacted by the victorious Red Army on the villages of the Terek, Kuban and Don Cossacks.
The hospitable Georgian authorities even arranged for the group to spend a long summer holiday at the Georgian spa of Borzhomi. There the Georgian government put them up in the Likani Palace, a summer retreat built for the Tsar’s brother Grand Duke Michael in Riviera Muscovite style, with many neo-classical and Italianate touches. It later became one of Stalin’s country houses and he spent some of the happiest times there with his wife, Nadya, before she committed suicide.
For the Kachalov group, their large and empty lodgings provided an awkward splendour, but at least they were left alone to discuss their future. They had to choose between exile and a very uncertain return to Bolshevik Moscow. It was hard, especially for those who found themselves in a minority, because the one thing that they all agreed on was that they could only survive together.
‘I have been suffering for a month in Borzhomi,’ Aunt Olya wrote to Masha, ‘unable to make up my mind whether to go to the west or not. I don’t think that I have shed so many tears in my life. I did not want to give the others my consent and I have been expecting from moment to moment to receive a summons back to Moscow ... We had a crazy day. We had been sitting together from morning to night and could not decide what we had to do ... How I want to go to Moscow! How tired I am of wandering!’
But with no guarantee from the authorities permitting their free return, even Stanislavsky realized that it was still far too dangerous to intervene on their behalf. The decision of the Kachalov group went against Aunt Olya’s longing to return at any price, but she understood Kachalov’s need to secure a safe-conduct for Vadim, who as a White Guard could easily face a death sentence despite his youth. ‘So it seems as if we’re almost certainly leaving, Masha,’ she continued her letter. ‘We’ll travel via Sofia, the Slav countries, Prague - then maybe Berlin, Paris? ... Masha, try to sense it when we set off across the Black Sea. My God, how revolting and shameful it is to go abroad!’
The dinner parties of the two aunts in Moscow for all their young nephews and nieces must have felt like part of a previous and completely separate life. The last performance of the Kachalov group before departing into European exile was The Cherry Orchard. The play’s note of valediction haunted her more than ever. Just before leaving she wrote a farewell letter to Stanislavsky. “‘Our life in this house is over”, as they said in The Cherry Orchard. And God knows where we will be united again and how we will find each other.’
Lev, once again, was on her mind. In her letter to Masha, she remonstrated with her once again for not having told her of his visit. ‘You don’t understand what a joy it would have been for me to hear that Lev is alive.’ But any news of him was by now nearly a year old, a time during which hundreds of thousands of people had died from war, disease and starvation.
Despite his later claim to have deserted from the White Army, Lev had in fact remained with Baron Wrangel’s forces in the Crimea after the terrible evacuation of Denikin’s men from Novorossiisk in March. Wrangel knew that he had neither the men nor the popular support on the mainland of southern Russia to risk an offensive. But in June, when the Poles forced the Red Army on to the defensive with their attacks, he decided to sally forth from the Crimean peninsula. His army managed to seize a large part of the Tauride provinces, but hopes of reuniting the Don and Kuban regions with the White cause were vain. In October, the Soviet regime concluded a ceasefire with the Poles. This allowed them to bring vastly superior forces south-eastwards against Wrangel. The Whites, who had only 35,000 men facing Red armies 130,000strong, were forced to retreat rapidly back into the
The hospitable Georgian authorities even arranged for the group to spend a long summer holiday at the Georgian spa of Borzhomi. There the Georgian government put them up in the Likani Palace, a summer retreat built for the Tsar’s brother Grand Duke Michael in Riviera Muscovite style, with many neo-classical and Italianate touches. It later became one of Stalin’s country houses and he spent some of the happiest times there with his wife, Nadya, before she committed suicide.
For the Kachalov group, their large and empty lodgings provided an awkward splendour, but at least they were left alone to discuss their future. They had to choose between exile and a very uncertain return to Bolshevik Moscow. It was hard, especially for those who found themselves in a minority, because the one thing that they all agreed on was that they could only survive together.
‘I have been suffering for a month in Borzhomi,’ Aunt Olya wrote to Masha, ‘unable to make up my mind whether to go to the west or not. I don’t think that I have shed so many tears in my life. I did not want to give the others my consent and I have been expecting from moment to moment to receive a summons back to Moscow ... We had a crazy day. We had been sitting together from morning to night and could not decide what we had to do ... How I want to go to Moscow! How tired I am of wandering!’
But with no guarantee from the authorities permitting their free return, even Stanislavsky realized that it was still far too dangerous to intervene on their behalf. The decision of the Kachalov group went against Aunt Olya’s longing to return at any price, but she understood Kachalov’s need to secure a safe-conduct for Vadim, who as a White Guard could easily face a death sentence despite his youth. ‘So it seems as if we’re almost certainly leaving, Masha,’ she continued her letter. ‘We’ll travel via Sofia, the Slav countries, Prague - then maybe Berlin, Paris? ... Masha, try to sense it when we set off across the Black Sea. My God, how revolting and shameful it is to go abroad!’
The dinner parties of the two aunts in Moscow for all their young nephews and nieces must have felt like part of a previous and completely separate life. The last performance of the Kachalov group before departing into European exile was The Cherry Orchard. The play’s note of valediction haunted her more than ever. Just before leaving she wrote a farewell letter to Stanislavsky. “‘Our life in this house is over”, as they said in The Cherry Orchard. And God knows where we will be united again and how we will find each other.’
Lev, once again, was on her mind. In her letter to Masha, she remonstrated with her once again for not having told her of his visit. ‘You don’t understand what a joy it would have been for me to hear that Lev is alive.’ But any news of him was by now nearly a year old, a time during which hundreds of thousands of people had died from war, disease and starvation.
Despite his later claim to have deserted from the White Army, Lev had in fact remained with Baron Wrangel’s forces in the Crimea after the terrible evacuation of Denikin’s men from Novorossiisk in March. Wrangel knew that he had neither the men nor the popular support on the mainland of southern Russia to risk an offensive. But in June, when the Poles forced the Red Army on to the defensive with their attacks, he decided to sally forth from the Crimean peninsula. His army managed to seize a large part of the Tauride provinces, but hopes of reuniting the Don and Kuban regions with the White cause were vain. In October, the Soviet regime concluded a ceasefire with the Poles. This allowed them to bring vastly superior forces south-eastwards against Wrangel. The Whites, who had only 35,000 men facing Red armies 130,000strong, were forced to retreat rapidly back into the
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