This paper deals with the prominent participants of the February Revolution in 1917 who came to live in Belgrade, throughout the research of the primary historical source, Card Register of the Citizens of Belgrade and Zemun 1924 - 1950. Special attention was paid to the analysis of the structure of data in the cards, especially those concerning the new perspectives of the researches of the Russian emigration. Presented at Solzhenitsyn House for the Russian Diaspora, Moscow, October 27th, 2017.

1. Russian Emigration and
Year 1917 in the Collections
of the Historical Archives of
Belgrade
Participants of the February Revolution in Belgrade
Slobodan Mandić
slobodan.mandic@gmail.com
Historical Archives of Belgrade
Serbia

2. Contemporary historiography
interpretation and archival researches
• new perspectives, questions and understandings of the
revolutionary events on the territory of Russia, in
February and in October of 1917

3. Participants of the February
Revolution who emigrated in
Belgrade
- starting from the hints found in available literature and
secondary historical sources
• the Historical Archives of Belgrade - Card Register of the
Citizens of Belgrade and Zemun of Central Application
Office of Belgrade City Administration - covers the period
from 1924 until 1944/1950
• research was followed by the control of the available
information in other sources (literature and in
contemporary databases available on Internet)

4. Card Register of the Citizens of Belgrade and Zemun
total number of cards is a bit over one million; collection is placed in 848
cardboard boxes and cards are arranged within the boxes in alphabetical order

5. the cards are printed on both sides
(21x19cm)

6. data available on the cards
• address; first and last name; profession; citizenship;date
of birth; place of birth; origins – municipality, county,
country; confession; previous residence; name and
maiden name of a wife; name/s of a child/children;
personal description for foreign citizens; residence
registration with date, address and name of the landlord;
date of the deregistration and new destination; every
card has the field remark, that often contains additional
information
• inexhaustible source for researches of
demographic characteristics

7. Protagonists of the collapse of the three-century
old monarchy of Romanoff whose destinies
brought them to the Kingdom of SHS
• Mikhail Vladimirovich Rodzianko‚ president of the last
imperial Duma

8. Mikhail
Vladimirovich
Rodzianko
three cards of M.V. Rodzianko
grandchildren (his son Mihailo
Mihailovic Rodzianko’s children):
Marija (b.1909), Vladimir (b. 1915)
and Oleg (b. 1923). His grandson
Vladimir performed parochial
service in the church of Saint Sava
in London (1951-1979), after that
he became a monk and as a
bishop he was appointed in
America. Together with Russian
Patriarch Aleksy, as a bishop
Basil, he led the first procession
on the streets of Moscow after
seventy years

9. Mikhail Vasiliyevich Alekseyev
(Михаи́л Васи́льевич Алексе́ев)
• crucial role in Nicholas II’s decision to abdicate
• Head Commander of the Russian Imperial Army in the moment of
February Revolution and initiator of Volunteer Army
• buried in the Belgrade Cemetery with all military honors
• there are no cards with the last name Alekseyev, but we tried to find
family of his wife Аннa Николаевнa (Пироцкой), and the search
resulted in two cards:
- Nikola Gavrilovich Pirocki (b. 1842), that was Ana Pirocki’s father
and other card was on the name of Olga Pirocki, her sister. Nikola
Pirocki’s card tells us that in 1924 he was registered in Belgrade, in
18 Milosa Pocerca Street, and his landlord was Ana Aleksejeva

10. Vasily Vitalyevich Shulgin
(Васи́лий Вита́льевич Шульги́н)
• as a deputy in Duma he represented the idea that Russia should
remain in the World War until final Russian victory
• the fact that he forced the Emperor to abdicate was of crucial
significance for Shulgin’s life
• register card of a citizen V.V. Shulgin, similar to his life, is full of
dynamic facts, often address changes in Belgrade, Ljubljana and
Sremski Karlovci
• these reliable data can be used to enlighten additionally details
from his biography
• we also have preserved information on his second wife, Marija
Dmitrovna Sidelnikova and on his son Dimitri from his first marriage
with Jekatarina Grigorievna

11. Register card of V.V. Shulgin

12. Russian high army officers in Belgrade
• Аверьянов, Петр Иванович (1867 -1937)
• Драгомиров, Владимир Михайлович (1867-1928)
• Гребен, Виктор Оттонович (1870-1938)
• Пржевальский, Михаил Алексеевич (1859-1934)
• Шатилов, Владимир Павлович (1855-1928)

13. Petr Ivanovich Averyanov
(Петр Иванович Аверьянов)
• among prominent army officers from imperial Russia, who found their
refuge in Belgrade and spent the rest of their lives
• during the First World War he managed to secure a credit for Serbia
in the amount of 40 mil. golden rubles
• died in Belgrade on the 13th of October 1937; his last residence was
in 127 Kraljice Marije Street

14. Sergey Nikolaevich Gerbel
(Сергей Николаевич Гербель)
• Chief Commissioner for food procurement for Russian Army during
the First World War and member of the State Council until 1st May
1917
• there is not a single note (on the Internet) on his life after 1919, after
he fled from the turbulences of the Civil War
• Card Register of the Citizens of Belgrade: Gerbel lived in Belgrade
in Loznicka Street, from his first registration on 18th August 1925
until last registration on 17th September 1939

15. results of the research concerning distinguished participants of
the February Revolution, members of political and military elite of
Imperial Russia in Belgrade, who were found in the Card Register
of the Citizens of Belgrade and Zemun 1924–1950
• first of all demonstrate how significant this archival material is for
researches of Russian emigration;
• as a specific kind of archival material produced by a government
public body, surely has certain degree of reliability and can fill in the
gaps after 1926, when documentation of the government authorities
and of emigrant institutions suddenly diminish;
• show great number of Russian emigrants who came to Belgrade
(1924/25 – about 10.000) - these numbers show that it is possible to
research many aspects of Russian emigrants’ history on large
sample of those who were registered

16. several aspects of Russian emigrants history that is
possible to research additionally through registration
cards
• to monitor the process of deregistration of the emigrants when they
left the Kingdom, according to the departure date, since moving was
constant in emigrants’ lives on the Balkans
• the question of the employments difficulty among Russian
emigrants, specially for Russian soldiers and army officers, which
can be seen in the registration cards of individuals
• detailed information on emigrants’ family relations and family
members allow us to look deeper into their lives, collapses,
challenges and problems that Russian emigrants had to face as
individuals, families and as a community

17. one person could have been registered twice
(in some cases)
• Mikhail Borisovich Maximovitch, who was
registered in April 1924 as a Seminary student
• the same person was registered on 14th January
1938 with name Jovan Borisovich Maksimovic,
bishop of Shanghai

18. The possibility for the future researches
based on the Card Register of Citizens
• over one million registrations, completely scanned in
2016
• in previous decades, there has always been a possibility
that certain card would not be put in the correct place,
since they were arranged in alphabetical order, and this
would be the same as if it were lost for good
• if the process of digitization of the Card Register involved
searchable database with available data from the cards,
future research of the Russian emigration would be so
much facilitated and it would be possible to analyze new
aspects of emigration on a representative sample

19. Русская эмиграция и 1917-й год в фондах
исторического архива Белграда: участники
Февральской революции в Белграде

20. Благодарю за внимание!