Admiral Kolchak- The Returned Archive
Siberian Times reports return of Kolchak archives.
Russian billionaires spent over 3 million euro at French auction to buy historic papers of the man who tried - and failed - to halt Bolsheviks.—Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak (1874-1920)-the man once known as ‘the supreme ruler of Russia’ 1
No-one knew about the collection said Anastasia Birr, a Paris-based specialist on Russian archives who was asked to view the files in spring 2019.2
First mentions of Kolchak’s private archive started appearing among Russian and foreign experts in March 2019 after his grandson and namesake Alexander Kolchak passed away in France aged 85. Within months of Alexander’s death his three children decided to auction all 391 documents belonging to the man once known as ‘the supreme ruler of Russia’, the collection that re-opened pages of some of the bloodiest and most turbulent times in Russian history. 3
The archive is currently exhibited at the Moscow-based Alexander Solzhenitsyn House of Russia Abroad.
McCook, Kathleen (2022). "Ice of the Kara and Siberian Seas""Supreme Leader and Commander-in-Chief of All Russian Land and Sea Forces" Ebla to E-Books: The Preservation and Annihilation of Memory. (January 13).
Skarbo, Svetlana and Valeria Sukhova. (2020) “Admiral Kolchak’s Archive has returned to Russia 100 Years after his Execution.” Siberian Times (February 12).
Ibid.
Forgive me, Ms. McCook, for using this place as a way to share with you a comment that I could not, as a non-paying (for now) subscriber to the Russian Dissent substack, make there. You mentioned there that you had recently reread 'the Russian novels'. If the novels you reread did not include Vassily Grossman's 'Stalingrad' and 'Life and Fate', I recommend them to you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_and_Fate
I think I found missing part of this archive in a second hand store in NH in 2014. Each volume is inscribed 'Ex Libri AKoltchak Paris 1900'. I'm happy to show them to anyone interested in exchange for more information about them. here are some photos of them: https://flic.kr/s/aHsjZY9iY7