Former People

Prince George Galitzine Memorial Library: Anglo-Russian Library in St Petersburg

Prince George Galitzine (1916-1992), Major; son of Prince Vladimir Emmanuelovich Galitzine.

In the 2013 book, Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy, the fate of two Russian aristocratic families — the Sheremetevs and the Golitsyns is detailed by Douglas Smith.¹ The nobility were considered "former people" by the Soviet state and experienced confiscations of property, internal exile, imprisonments, tortures, executions, and desecration of graves. Thousands were killed.

Some escaped.

Prince George (Georgii Vladimirovich) Galitzine was born in Imperial Russia (Tiflis, Georgia; now Tbilisi) in 1916. In 1919 aged 3 years old Prince George escaped revolutionary Russia with his family, left Novorossisk on a British warship and spent the majority of his life living and working in England. During World War II, Prince Galitzine served as a Major in the Welsh Guards.  After retiring from a career in business (Plessey, Xerox, Sperry, British Steel, Pactel) he began taking cultural lecture tours to Russia. George Galitzine was Chairman of the Russian Refugee Aid Society and a focal member of the Council of Great Britain – USSR Association in London. Prince Galitzine wrote many published articles on Russian history and architecture and the history of his family. 

The  Prince George Galitzine Memorial Library,² St Petersburg, was founded in 1994, in memory of  Prince George Galitzine, by the London based charity "The Galitzine - St Petersburg Trust" organized by Prince George's widow, Jean and their daughter, Katya. The theme of the Library is "Rossica of the 20th Century":

• books about Russia published abroad

• publications by Russian emigres

• rare literary journals and magazines, otherwise known as 'Tamizdat' 

Among the donations to The Galitzine Library were books from members of the British Royal family, Russian scholars, authors, politicians and many established British and Russian institutions.

Mayakovsky Library

On The Galitzine Library's 25th Anniversary in 2019, the library in its entirety was presented to the people of St Petersburg by The Galitzine-St Petersburg Trust as a gift to the city, with The Mayakovsky Library³ as its custodian.⁴

1. Smith, Douglas. Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy. New York : Picador, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

2. The  Prince George Galitzine Memorial Library.

3. Mayakovskaya Library in St. Petersburg.

4. Galitzine, Katya (2021). "The Prince George Galitzine Library, St. Petersburg." The Book Collector 70 no.4 (winter 1921): 619-630.