Tell me about yourself and your experience with Russian culture in Paris.
I was born here in Paris in 1948. My parents moved here in 1918, and they didn't know each other. They met during World War II. I have lived here, across from this church where we are now. I went to this school within the church. On Thursday nobody had lycée, so from 5 to 18 years of age, I spent my Thursdays here. There were incredible teachers who taught us grammar, history, law of God. And really here I learned everything. Of course, I went to French university afterwards, but this is the school that taught me everything.
How did you like Russian school compared to French school?
A lot more. First of all, I only spoke in Russian with my parents until I was 7 years old. Our family friends were all Russian. When they sent me to kindergarten, I didn't understand the language. My last name sounds very strange in French, so the kids all made fun of me. And I lived in this house across the street, where half of the entire apartment building was Russians. Of course I liked Russian school much better.
How did so many Russians end up in one apartment building?
First of all, it was probably pretty cheap back then, and of course nobody had any money. They left Russia and had money when they got here, and they really thought that they would only be here for two or three years. At first they just went from hotel to hotel, because they were convinced that they'd be coming back. Then the money started running out. People really thought that this was just a short peccadillo; nobody knew they'd stay in Paris for good.
What about your parents?
Life moves on; they became French. But they didn't want to hear anything about Russia, especially after the war. Maybe they went to see a movie and read Russian books once in a while, and they still spoke in Russian, but they felt abandoned by the country.
What about you, who loved the Russian school. Did you think about moving back?
No. Teachers taught with the subtext that there really isn't any purpose in going there. There, there would only be people who would not talk to us, even in the street. See, I used to think that they were exaggerating when they said that the mentality of post-1917 Russia is not the same. But it’s true. Those people were simply raised differently. The political or financial circumstances transformed entirely. People who remained in Russia and adapted, or those who were told to keep their mouths shut, all began to think very differently. Otherwise they'd be killed. For instance my grandmother had four brothers in the army. Her father was a general. All four were killed.
So you do not think that Russian people would welcome you, who were once the cultural base of the country?
They called our emigration the “enemies of the people”!
What about the national pride in and respect for the White Russians?
No! Maybe now, in retrospect, there is. But absolutely not. I went to Russia once when I was in university. My mother died when I was 9 years old, and my father died when I was 17 years old, so I was left completely alone. So in 1974 I got a fellowship for six weeks to go there.
How did you feel there?
Horrible. It was 1974. The fellowship was to teach Russian. When we got off the plane, everyone was speaking Russian. But everyone asked me where I was from, as if my accent made me sound like I was from some pribaltika [Baltic state]. I said "No, I am from Paris. I am from no pribaltika!" They were very rude to us, but I felt it even more because when I was growing up I idealized Russia. My mom was from St. Petersburg, my father from Uzbekistan, but all the people I met in real Russia were very unsympathetic. I didn't have any friends or family in what was supposed to be my homeland. I just arrived and walked like a fool around that idiotic Nevsky Prospect. Then I understood that in order to get some real Russian food, like blini, you needed to go to a European hotel. Otherwise they would just feed me kasha. Overall I felt very uncomfortable. When I walked down the street people kept coming up to me asking me if I would sell my sunglasses, or my shoes. The only people who would talk to me would be those peddlers who kept trying to get me to sell my European things. I felt a very uncomfortable atmosphere.
Was this difficult for you?
Of course! If the only thing these people could relate to me was to sell food! I remember that at one point my shoes got completely ruined from walking around the boulevards. So I went to go buy Soviet shoes, which were actually good solid shoes. And the woman who sold me the new shoes asked if she could take my old torn ones. She asked why I would even buy their Soviet shoes! This appalled me.
What about Soviets who visited Paris?
I think that they were forbidden to speak to foreigners. I remember once a group of Soviets came to Paris, and they were standing there by the Eiffel Tower in a complete sardine circle. They wouldn't move a meter from each other. When I tried to come up to them and ask some questions in Russian, they simply wouldn't respond. It's because they were told that Russians here are all spies, and that they should not communicate with us. Once, they asked me to translate something for some visiting engineers—everyone who travels between France and Russia is an engineer these days. In preparation, they told me that in Russia they prepared the engineers to travel anywhere in Paris, but absolutely not to go to St. Genevieve du Bois, the graveyard where all the famous Russians from the White emigration are buried, because the Soviets will be killed there. That's completely ridiculous! So they were, how to say, they were just scared. Scared to talk.
So then how do you reconcile your love for and tension with Russia?
I can't relate to the Russia that exists now in any way; I've only been there twice. In 1974, and then when I met an artist in the 1980s, I got to visit him and meet some Russians related to him. But I really can't say anything about Russia.
What about your cultural ties?
Well, books, of course. But in our family and in this community, for me, we all say that after 1917 Russia doesn't exist. Everyone would say that. It became a completely different country with different people. Maybe some people thought otherwise, that now they are very interesting. Stalin even called some to return; I mean, I don't know what happened to those people but, let's just say, we know they didn't get a very good welcome. We found out that they were sent to concentration camps and tortured to death. Today we can travel there quite easily. Everyone goes now, and it’s the other way around too: now everyone thinks the White émigrés of the first wave are very interesting.
In Paris, do you ever feel this divide between Russian and French?
Well, I was in ACER [Russian Students Christian Organization, Action Chrétienne des Etudiants Russess] as a little boy. They kept encouraging me to sign up for their camps, their different circles and groups—but for me this was basically the same thing as my bad visit to Russia. I quit ACER, and I would only go to church because I had to when I was little. But when I grew up I realized it wasn't for me, so I stopped going. The émigrés were still very kind to me. I didn't feel a difference between Russian and French. The only reason I went to their camps was because I wanted to pass the holidays for free, and because my father used to go to it. He was a taxi driver and would drive meat to the ACER camps from Grenoble. Yes, this was quite known; so many Russian men we knew worked as taxi drivers.
How did you feel, knowing that your father, had you stayed in Russia, could have been so much greater than a taxi driver?
My father always told me that when he was little, he wanted to be a driver. And he said once we moved here, “You see, I became a driver!”
Do you think this was fair to your parents?
Well, it was their decision. They chose to move to France. For us it was so hard to see people who wanted to go back fail. Especially when they took Generals Kupeka and Miller. The Soviets kidnapped them! They drowned one and dropped the other one off of a plane. And during this period from 1917 to 1942, there was some sort of hope to return to Russia—if the Germans would have won. Then, we realized this was impossible. Some believed Stalin when he invited them back. I actually know a family who went back: the father was sent to a concentration camp, and the 10-year old son went to a pionerskii lager Soviet boys camp.
What role did French education play in your life?
It certainly gave me access to two cultures. But on the other hand, I don't have either culture. I'm not sure who I am. I don't feel myself as a Frenchman at all. But I'm certainly not Russian either. Right away, Russians see that I'm not Russian. I only spoke in Russian when I was growing up. All of the literature before 1917 I knew, and of course it helped a lot for my university degree in Russian. I think it is thanks to this very Russian school where we sit that I achieved my diploma. Otherwise I would never have sustained the level necessary.
It's quite sad, of course, that the Russian people were dislocated from their culture.
Well, what would you like to do about it, if after all there was a revolution? You cannot change this fact. For some like us it is devastating. For others, like whoever got our family's house in St. Petersburg, of course it is no devastation at all. When I was in St. Petersburg, I went to visit our family's house before the revolution; my uncle gave me the address. And it was right there, and then that I understood why I loved Venice so much. My family’s former house in St. Petersburg looks just like it! It was beautiful, four stories… But what am I to do? Stand there and cry that we had to move to a small apartment on the edge of Paris? Of course not. So what did I do? I took a piece of wood from the outside of the house, and I still have it now. What was I supposed to do, start insisting that it is my home and my culture and demanding to “give me back my home"? That would be silly.
So nostalgia of course remains?
I wouldn't call it nostalgia, because nostalgia is born from what you already knew. I didn't know this life, but I always heard people saying, “Oh Petersburg, oh Petersburg, it's wonderful.” Probably I assume it was wonderful to live there, but I just don't know.
Then what about the Russian literature you have dedicated your life to teaching?
I mean, for example, yes, I adore Russian literature. For me, [Fyodor] Dostoyevsky is the greatest writer.
Not [Leo] Tolstoy?
No, no. Tolstoy is of course good, yes, I like him, but Dostoyevsky in my opinion is much more interesting in terms of psychology and characters. It fits me more, I suppose.
Your knowledge of Russian came entirely from this Russian school?
Here in this school, yes. The other Russian schools I don't know about. When I was young there used to be one on Rue Petelle. I'm not sure if it exists still. Actually, we were told that there is one which is controlled by the Russian metropolitan, the Soviet one. So they told us never to interact with them. And they never come to us, because the metropolitan was from the Soviet church. So in effect there are these sorts of clans, these sub-groups of Russian émigrés, who don't really interact with one another. Let's say they avoided one another. But that's understandable, since there was a second wave of émigrés right after the Second World War, and then a third wave arrived. Then there was an attempt to unite all of them, but it didn't work out.
Yes, it seems that today, the youth today group themselves into separate groups.
Well, yes, but they are all the same. They are interesting rivals because their summer camps are essentially within 5 kilometers from each other, so in the summer they play football matches against one another. It’s quite a tradition.
So the moral of the White émigré story is to make lemonade out of lemons?
It's not injustice what happened to us. In history this happens: some lose what they have; others win. In 1974, when I went to St. Petersburg, I went to the library and was talking to the librarian about [Czar] Nicholas II and the [royal] family, how they were killed in Yekaterinburg. They told me I was making everything up. Then they showed me a history book. In this Soviet textbook, it said that Nicholas II simply abdicated! The people there really thought this—this was in 1974! But I knew otherwise because I learned it here. I can also confirm the fact because my uncle was the doctor to Nicholas II’s uncle. Just goes to show—history is written by those who win. It's only now that they've deemed Nicholas II a complete saint and are digging up bones that are probably not even his.
So what about the future? Do you think in 10, maybe even 50 years, émigrés may return to Russia?
Here? Russians like me? No, I don't think so. They are after all French. You know when the communists stopped being communists, after the perestroika, they took down the red Soviet flag. On it there is a hammer and sickle. They told me that the sickle was to cut throats, and the hammer to beat on the head and kill people. I believed this when I was 10 years old. Well, okay, so they took down this flag. They put up the blue, white, and red flag, so I went to the Russian embassy. I said, "Listen, you know, after all it is not my fault that there was a revolution. Would you please return to me my Russian citizenship so I will not have to wait hours in line for a visa?" They said, "Absolutely, no problem—but you just have to retract your French nationality." I mean, I'm not crazy after all! I would not do that.
I think that those who are here and nostalgic, yes, they can go ahead and move back into their wonderful homes and live their fascinating lives—but that's unrealistic and not for me.