Grebenstchikoff, George and Tatiana, Papers

Finding Aid

IHRC

Descriptive summary

PROVENANCE

Collection acquired from the Lakeland Public Library in Florida in 2001.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

George Grebenstchikoff was born in 1882 in Kamenevka in the Shemonaikha region of Altai, present-day Kazakhstan. George’s mother, Elena Petrovna Grebenstchikoff, encouraged him to learn to read and write at an early age, an uncommon skill in a typical family of miners. He began writing poetry at the age of nine, but his father, Dmitri Lukich Grebenstchikoff, had taken George with him into the lumber industry, thus curtailing any further elementary education.
            At the age of twelve, George left his hometown for the nearby city of Semipalatinsk to earn a living through a variety of jobs: making postmarks, washing dishes, being an apprentice to a pharmacist, and assisting in a hospital. At fourteen, George became a scribe for the city magistrate and was able to pursue his scholarly interests. He first began publishing his literary work in 1905, writing reviews, reports, and short stories for the local newspapers. In 1909, George published his first play.
            In the spring of 1909, George toured Moscow and St. Petersburg for the first time. He also visited Leo Tolstoy at the novelist’s estate in Yasnaya Polyana. Upon his return home, George surveyed Altai and read lectures with an ethnographic team. George continued his literary profession in Barnaul, where he became editor and journalist for the paper “Altai Life.” In 1912, George met Maxim Gorky and received influential praise for his writing, establishing himself firmer as an author.
            In 1916, George volunteered as a medical orderly in the Imperial Russian Army for the eastern front of the first World War and worked as a military correspondent for a journal in Moscow. George’s family, comprised of first wife, a son, his parents and two brothers, remained near Kamenevka during the war. George pursued correspondence and even visited his family while on leave in 1917. While at the front, George met his future companion, Tatiana Stadnik, in 1917. Tatiana (1896-1964) was a former ballerina of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg and served in the war as a nurse of the Red Cross. After the end of World War I, the Grebenstchikoffs briefly lived in Kiev before moving to Yalta. The couple’s stay by the Black Sea enabled George to continue writing and to even begin building his first chapel in honor of Saint Sergius. In the Crimea, George met numerous well-established writers, such as Ivan Bunin and Ivan Shmelyoff. Influenced by this literary community and the emergent civil unrest in post-Tsarist Russia, the Grebenstchikoffs seriously considered emigration for the first time.
            In the fall of 1920, the consequences of the Russian Civil War forced the General Pyotr Wrangel’s White army troops to evacuate Crimea. Aided by historian and economist Pyotr Struve, the Grebenstchikoffs left the Crimea (and their home country for the last time) for Constantinople on September 17, 1920. After a month-long stay (as part of the evacuated White army troops) in Turkey, the Grebenstchikoffs still hoped to complete their emigration to France. Enticed by prospects of publishing the first tomes of his epic novel “Churaevs” in France, George left Turkey with Tatiana to travel first to Egypt and Germany before finally arriving in France in January 1921 with the family of General A. S. Lukomsky.
            The Grebenstchikoffs began settling in southern France in 1921, using the land of the Schwetzoff couple, fellow Siberian émigrés. George published the “Churaevs” in the spring of 1921. George pursued a prolific literary career in France until meeting Nicholas Roerich in Paris in 1923, a painter and orientalist who became instrumental in the Grebenstchikoffs’ spiritual direction and their subsequent departure for America. As the couple prepared for their final step in emigration, George already began preparing material for lectures about Siberia. Before the trip, George formed his first publishing company, Alatas, with Nicholas Roerich.
            In April 1924, the Grebenstchikoffs finally arrived in New York and a year later, the couple founded Churaevka, a Russian literary and artistic community in Southbury, Connecticut. The land was purchased from Ilya Tolstoy, the son of author Leo Tolstoy. The village enjoyed visits from numerous Russian poets, musicians and scientists such as inventor Igor Sikorsky, singer Fyodor Chaliapine, and sculptor Sergey Konenkov. Meanwhile, George finally became the sole owner of the Alatas publishing house. In 1927, the printing equipment of Alatas moved from Roerich’s museum in New York to Churaevka, where Russian exhibitions, festivals, lessons for children occurred regularly. In September 1930, the opening of the Chapel of St. Sergius garnered many supporters of the village. The day was marked by a festival of religious ceremony, lectures, and Russian food. The chapel was designed by Nicholas Roerich according to an archaic plan and constructed by George himself. Subsistence in Churaevka continued through the publication of work by George Grebenstchikoff and Nicholas Roerich, as well as Igor Sikorsky and Konstantin Balmont.
            In the early 1940s, the Grebenstchikoffs moved to Lakeland, Florida and shortly began teaching at Southern Florida University. George taught courses in creative writing and Russian literature, while Tatiana specialized in printing and managed the school’s printing press. The couple taught at the University until retirement in 1955. While in America, the Grebenstchikoffs pursued lengthy correspondence with friends and professional contacts across the entire globe. Besides managing Churaevka, Alatas, and teaching at the University, the Grebenstchikoffs dispensed guidance and support to young Russian immigrants from Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union. Shortly after retirement, George suffered worsening health conditions and eventually died in Lakeland in January 1964. Tatiana’s passing followed a few weeks later.

DESCRIPTION OF THE COLLECTION

The papers of George and Tatiana consist of correspondence, diaries, financial documents, photographs, and handmade copies of the Alatas publications. The bulk of the collection is in the correspondence between George Grebenstchikoff and his friends, spiritual leaders, professional contacts, and critics. The correspondence is generally organized alphabetically by the author’s last name. The letters tend to document both George’s professional development as a writer and spiritual convictions as an immigrant of Russia. The photographs are a complement to the vast collection of letters, as they identify various stages in the Grebenstchikoffs’ life both in Europe and America. The photographs are grouped in categories based on the Grebenstchikoffs’ lifespan.

Selected documents from the collection have been digitized and are available at the following link: http://www.ihrc.umn.edu/research/dil/Greben/greb.html

ACCESS RESTRICTIONS

The Grebenstchikoff, George and Tatiana collection is available for public research.

OWNERSHIP & LITERARY RIGHTS

The Grebenstchikoff, George and Tatiana collection is the physical property of the Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota.

For further information regarding the copyright, please contact the IHRC.

CITE AS

The Grebenstchikoff, George and Tatiana Papers, Russian American Collection, Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota

Index Terms

Description of Series

This section briefly describes each series in the collection. A more detailed description of the contents of each series may be found in the following section.

Detailed Description of the Collection

Back to all finding aids in IHRC VITRAGE.