Nelka Part 1

Nelka.

by Michael Moukhanoff.

FOREWARD.

In attempting this biographical sketch of Nelka I am using the memories of 45 years together and also a great number of letters as material. Her Aunt, Miss Susan Blow, had the habit of keeping Nelka's letters over the years. There are some as early as when Nelka was only five years old and then up to the year 1916, the year her aunt died. These letters reflect very vividly the personality, the ideas, the aspirations, the disappointments and the hopes of a person over a period of a long life. They paint a very real picture of her personality and for this reason I am using quotations from these letters very extensively.

Nelka de Smirnoff was born on August 19, 1878 in Paris, France.

Her father was Theodor Smirnoff, of the Russian n.o.bility. Her grandmother had tartar blood in her veins and was born Princess Tischinina. Nelka's father was a brilliant man, finishing the Imperial Alexander Lyceum at the head of his cla.s.s. A versatile linguist, he joined the Russian diplomatic service and occupied several diplomatic posts in various countries, but died young, when Nelka was only four years old, and was buried in Berlin. Nelka therefore hardly knew him, though she remembered him and throughout her life had a great veneration for him and loyalty for his memory.

Nelka's mother was Nellie Blow, the daughter of Henry T. Blow of St.

Louis, Missouri. The Blow family, of old southern aristocratic stock, moved from Virginia to St. Louis in 1830. Henry T. Blow was then about fifteen years old and had several brothers and sisters.

He was a successful business man who became very wealthy and was also a prominent public and political figure, both in St. Louis and nationally. He was a friend of both Abraham Lincoln and of President Grant and received appointments from them. He was minister to Venezuela and later Amba.s.sador to Brazil. He was active in politics from 1850 on. Though his brothers were southern democrats, Henry Blow took a stand against slavery and upheld the free-soil movement.

During the Civil War he was the only one of the family to take the side of the Union and spent much of his time getting his brothers out of prison camps. For a time he was state senator and for two terms was Congressman in Washington. He also served as one of the three Commissioners for the District of Columbia.

He was married to Minerva Grimsley and had ten children. His daughter Nellie Blow, while in Brazil with her father, met Theodor Smirnoff who was then secretary at the Russian Emba.s.sy there. She married him in Carondolet, part of St. Louis, where the family lived, in 1872.

They had three children, a boy and a girl, who died in infancy in St.

Petersburg, Russia, and another girl, Nelka, who was born in 1878 and was therefore the only living child.

Henry T. Blow's oldest daughter (and Nelka's aunt) Miss Susan Blow was a prominent figure in the American educational movement, writing and lecturing on education, and the one who introduced the Froebel kindergarten system in the United States. The youngest daughter, Martha, married Herbert Wadsworth of Geneseo, N.Y. She was a very talented musician and painter and later became a very known horsewoman.

After Nelka's father died in Europe, her mother returned to America and it was the first time that Nelka came here. As a daughter of a Russian, Nelka was also a Russian subject and remained a Russian that way to the end. After the Russian Revolution, having no allegiance to the Soviet Government, she became what is known as "stateless," a position which in later years she liked, for she always said that she belonged to the World, not just one country.

But as a child her mother wanted to bring her up as a Russian even though in many ways this was difficult, for there were no relatives and few connections left in Russia, her mother did not speak the language and all ties and connections were in America.

Because of this conflict of attachments, Nelka's mother and she traveled many times back and forth between Europe and America. Her mother gave her a very complete and broad education both in America and in Europe. In Europe she attended a very exclusive and rather advanced school in Brussels. Because of this Nelka spoke not only perfect French and English, but German as well.

When she was ten years old she went to a school in Washington. She then already showed interest and love for animals which later became a dominant feature in her life.

Writing to her aunt Susie from Washington 1888:

"At Uncle Charles Drake the boys have a little pet squirrel; it don't bite them but it bites strangers if you give it a chance to. They have some little guinea pigs that are very cute."

She also at that age showed intellectual interests:

Washington 1888.

"I read very much now whenever I get a chance to. I think it is splendid and always amusing. I can play lots of little duets on the piano with Mama. I love it."

Her stay in the school in Brussels was very profitable for her studies and development and also showed in her letters how much interest she took in everything.

Brussels 1893.

"I know what you mean about my getting older. You think that at every different age I would be content to be that age if I did not get any older. So I was. When I was ten I thought it would be dreadful to be eleven, but when I was eleven I was quite satisfied if I did not have to be twelve, and so on. But ever since I have been fourteen I have thought it was awful and have never become reconciled to it."

Brussels 1894.

"I was first in grammar, literature and physics. Do you know the 'Melee' of Victor Hugo? I have just read it and I like it so much. I would like to see some persons who have lived and who live. It makes me crazy to see people vegetate."

Brussels 1893.

"We went to Waterloo. We went by carriage all the way, first through the Bois de la Cambre and then on through the most perfect woods imaginable. We went to a sort of little mound in the middle of the battlefield with a huge lion on top as the emblem of victory. One thing, although of no importance, I like so much, that was three little birds nests one in the lion's mouth and one in each ear.

Wasn't it nice? We then went to the museum at the foot of the hill. I got a photograph of Napoleon and one of Wellington. I have such a contempt for Napoleon and I just take pleasure in comparing it with the frank, open face of the Duke of Wellington."

Already at that age she was seeking answers to moral questions and showed her philosophical mind:

Brussels 1894.

"'Une injustice qu'on voit et qu'on tait: on la commet soi meme.' (An injustice one sees and keeps quiet about: one commits it oneself.) I wish more persons could or would recognize that truth."

As a child Nelka did not speak Russian, because there was no one around using this language. After her school in Brussels, her mother took her to Russia to St. Petersburg. She was then seventeen.

St. Petersburg 1895.

"For the last few days I have been most blissfully absorbed in Taine's 'Ideal dans l'Art.' I never knew it was in a separate volume.

It is splendid. Of course you know 'Character' of Smiles. I don't care for it much, so sermony. I am going to the Hermitage tomorrow just to see the Dutch and Flemish schools."

The same year her mother took her to Paris and entered her to attend lectures at the College de France while living at the Convent of the a.s.sumption.

Paris 1895.

"I have just come back from the College de France. I enjoyed the lecture very much; it was on Stendhal. You will be perhaps surprised to learn that my educational career has taken a sudden turn. I am going into the Convent of the a.s.sumption next week. Now don't be horrified. The a.s.sumption is an exception to all the convents; besides the regular studies they have professors from the Sorbonne, Lycee Henry IV and other colleges to come in and give lectures on foreign literature, history, art, etc. Besides this unheard of privilege they have an atelier for drawing with Ducet to correct, and living models, men, women and children. Of course Mama never imagined such a thing possible in a convent, the general idea of convents not going beyond wax flowers. Here are the privileges I will have:

1) Clock-like life and no time lost.

2) No risk of disagreeable a.s.sociations as they are most particular who they take.

3) I will see Mama almost every day.

"I shall have to go to bed at eight! Just fancy that!!! But then I have an astonishing capacity for sleeping and eating just now."

While in Paris, in addition to the general subjects and the lectures at the Sorbonne, Nelka also studied music, in particular the violin, and at a time was quite proficient in it, though she did not keep it up, as she did with painting, which she continued for a number of years.

Nelka's mother tried to bring her up in the Russian spirit with a great veneration for the memory of her father. Nelka grew up with a burning nationalistic feeling for Russia and a veneration for the Russian Emperor. Her mother kept up relations with such Russians as she knew or who were with the Russian Emba.s.sy when in Washington. And later, when she grew up, Nelka continually kept up with her Russian friends.

I think characteristic of Nelka was her highly emotional expressions of loyalty and devotion, an emotion which dominated all of her life and all of her actions. Anything she did or undertook was primarily motivated by emotion or feeling rather than reason, but once decided upon was carried out with determination and a great deal of will power.

But because the difference of national attachments and the resulting conflict there was always a tearing apart and a division, a duality of attachments both to Russia and to America, and this seems to have been an emotional disturbance which lasted with her for a great many years.

Her first, overwhelming emotional feeling was a patriotic nationalistic devotion to Russia and a mystic devotion to the Emperor and the Russian Orthodox Church. Then her next emotional feelings embraced the devotion and loyalty for her family and her kin.

But in Russia she had no relatives and all her family was in America.

Because of that there seemed always a conflict of emotions, attachments and loyalties which dominated as a disturbance throughout her life, at least through the first half of it. This conflict of feelings was upsetting and painful and she suffered a great deal from the frustrations that these emotions often brought about.

The Russian education of feelings for Russia which her mother tried to install in her succeeded, for throughout life Nelka remained a faithful Russian in all of her feelings and while having so many ties in America, and being herself half American, she was constantly in conflict with the 'American way of life.'