My Russian Relative's Dramatic Experiences in Revolution and War
7-5-1992
Undated (AP) _ EDITOR'S NOTE - For three generations a collection of family memoirs passed from attic to attic. At length, a great-great-grandnephew took a look. What he found was a saga of terror, bloodshed and intrigue, a personal account of one soldier who fought in the Russian army in World War I and witnessed the communist revolution. By ANDREW SELSKY Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - On the night of Jan. 5, 1918, a friend whispered a warning, provided a fast horse, and Valerian Yavorsky, a 25-year-old lieutenant, escaped certain death at the hands of the Russian soldiers he commanded.
A few days later he escaped execution once again, this time by the crazed officer who commanded him. And again and again after that when his jailers held a gun to his head and forced him to watch as others were tied to a tree and shot.
When death finally came it was at age 99 after a peaceful and varied career in the United States, as a tennis pro, industrial analyst and teacher. Yavorsky did not live to witness the collapse of the communist government which so terrorized him and he so despised.
Valerian Yavorsky was my father's great-uncle. His remarkable story is contained in a stack of memoirs passed down through my father to me.
The yellowing pages went unread for months before I got around to them. I discovered not the boring monologue I expected but a thriller, a tale of danger, betrayal and lucky escapes.
They form part of a fading collective memory of the Russian Revolution. As witnesses to that momentous event age and die, only such written accounts, and those retold by their families remain.
Yavorsky was born in 1893 and raised in Odessa. He was a medical student, a tennis champ and soccer player. His entire amateur soccer team enlisted in the army at the start of World War I. He completed officer training and became a company commander in January 1915 in the 4th Sharpshooters Division, fighting the Germans and their allies.
His memoirs describe his respect for his foes and the massive losses both sides suffered. He himself was wounded in battle three times.
"None of the Russian, French or English soldiers could be compared with the Germans," he wrote. "No one questioned their ability to fight and to die heroically."
"In a fight at Tziganka Mara, with about 50 soldiers left out of 250 after having turned back the Germans all day, we stopped them for the last time at six o'clock in the evening after twelve attacks. Oh, they could die, and that they did. My company was remanned during the night. The next morning we took the offensive."
In October 1917, Lenin, trying to consolidate his revolution and wipe out remnants of czarist rule, encouraged workers, peasants and soldiers to revolt. At that point Yavorsky found himself in danger of being slain by his own troops.
"You would not like to see what went on during those days at the front lines. I do not like to think of it either. ... Every soldier who did not like his officer could arrest that officer and even kill him without any trial. A shoemaker was now telling a general what to do if he wanted to stay alive."
On that fateful night of Jan. 5, 1918, revolutionaries in Yavorsky's division called a meeting of all enlisted men. No officers were allowed.
"About three o'clock in the morning my orderly quietly slipped in and, in a whisper, told me, 'Your honor,' and then corrected himself, 'Comrade Lieutenant, the meeting is over; you had better pack whatever you can take with you and run away from here. It was decided that all of you will be killed in the morning. I will have a horse ready for you in the back yard.'"
Yavorsky warned his commander, who told his officers to save themselves. Then he fled with two other lieutenants.
"Rifle, shoulder straps were discarded and all insignias from the military caps and coats which would have identified ourselves as officers were removed. We looked like soldiers deserting the front and we tried to act accordingly."
The three joined a "Battalion of Death" composed of officers who had left their divisions and were preparing to fight the revolutionaries. But "in two days we realized that our commander was not a normal person ... in those two days he personally killed about a dozen of his officers whom he did not trust completely and so the three of us decided to run away again."
Yavorsky returned to Odessa, where he enrolled in law and drama school. In March 1918, the new Soviet government signed a peace agreement with Germany. But civil war raged between the Red and the White army, which had been formed to oust Lenin's government.
As civil order in Odessa crumbled, Yavorsky joined a group of armed students who guarded banks and prisons and patrolled the streets. Three days later, the Red army captured the city and installed their secret police, the Cheka, later renamed the KGB.
On May 5, 1919, Yavorsky was on his way to a play rehearsal when the Cheka arrested him and accused him of being a Capt. Yavorsky of the White army. Although he had been in a White army unit - the "Battalion of Death" - for two days, he denied it.
He was held with 60 other prisoners in a former classroom. The commissar of the cell gave him the spot of a man who had been shot the previous night.
Guards periodically took prisoners away, telling them to leave their belongings behind - that they wouldn't need anything where they were going. Those prisoners were not seen again.
One day three guards took a man named Gregoriev away. The prisoners were ordered to the window.
"We all came and saw that the guards had led Gregoriev to a tree which stood in the yard," he wrote. "They offered to tie him to the tree, but he refused to be tied. Then they started putting a blindfold on, but he tore it off. He stood there against the tree facing the three guards with lifted rifles. 'Shoot,' the command (was) shouted, and by the force of the bullets Gregoriev was first pushed to the tree and then slowly settled down to the ground."
A Cheka officer, named only as Michail, told the prisoners that such a fate awaited all traitors.
"At night half a dozen men were taken away and I began to wonder how soon my turn would come. ... I was told secretly that those who were taken out had been taken across the street into the Cheka headquarters and shot there in the deep cellars so that the shooting wouldn't be audible from the outside."
Another night two prisoners, as they were being led across the street, threw salt and pepper they had been saving for weeks into the eyes of their guards and escaped.
"We never had salt and pepper brought in again."
One day, a guard came for Yavorsky.
A man named Severny, the head of the Cheka in Odessa, told him he would be forgiven of having been in the White army if he signed a confession.
Yavorsky, believing he would be signing his own death sentence, denied the charge. Michail came in and pointed a gun at him but Yavorsky repeated the denial and made up a story about being a socialist activist in the university before the war.
"I was fighting for my life. I called upon every stage trick I had learned at school. John Barrymore had nothing on me. The argument lasted for another hour and although the gun was next to my head most of the time, they could not shake me."
The other prisoners were surprised when Yavorsky was returned to the cell. The same day, a new prisoner - whom Yavorsky had known slightly - was put beside him for five days. The man tried to befriend Yavorsky and get him to admit he had been with the White army. Yavorsky, believing it was a trap, repeated his denials.
One day, the cell's commissar was taken away and shot in the yard without explanation.
Yavorsky was brought before Severny again and was told he was found innocent of having been in the White army. But he faced a new accusation - of having written an anti-communist poem. A typewritten copy of the poem was found in Yavorsky's desk.
Yavorsky had indeed written it, but explained that he had typed someone else's verses found at random as a typing lesson. Yavorsky was astounded when he was returned to the cell yet again.
The executions continued.
"One hysterical man was dragged out of the room. He was screaming his heart out, he was swearing, accusing the communists of doublecrossing, (he was a communist himself) and he shouted all the way down the steps and into the yard. He was yelling while they tied him to the tree and fought them until the shots were fired and he settled down at the roots of the tree.
"Every time a killing took place a truck was driven in and the motor was raced so the shots wouldn't be heard outside. Then the body was thrown on the truck and the show was over."
"Quite often we were ordered to the windows to witness executions of people from other rooms or cells. Sometimes I felt that perhaps it would be better to call an end to it. How much longer could a man last? Several in my room went mad and were taken away."
On May 27, a guard told Yavorsky to collect his things. Severny told him his explanations were believed and that he was a free man.
After he got home, Yavorsky saw himself in a mirror for the first time in weeks. "I didn't look so good." His brown hair had gone gray at the temples. He was only 26.
Being released by the Soviet government did not win him over to their side - his memoirs refer to them as murderers, hypocrites and liars.
Most of his friends were dead or in the White army.
He joined the White army's naval fleet and served there until the anti- communist forces were defeated in October 1920. He had married shortly before then and escaped on a boat with his bride to Turkey.
Two years later Yavorsky came to the United States, where he found work as a tennis instructor for several clubs and acted with Russian emigre theater in New York City.
In June 1929 he became the summer tennis pro at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulpher Springs, W.Va. In the winter, he taught at the Boca Raton Club in Florida and played exhibition games against such stars as Bill Tilden and Don Budge.
Another of his tennis partners was Frederick Rentschler, chief of Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. When the Greenbrier was converted to use as an Army hospital during World War II, Yavorsky got a job as an analyst for Pratt & Whitney in Connecticut. He worked there from 1942 until the mid-1950s.
In the 1960s, he moved to Boca Raton and taught mechanical drawing, tennis and art at St. Andrew's prep school there. Yavorsky and his wife, Eugenie, never had children.
He died in Boca Raton in 1979, 12 years before the collapse of the communist government. Few were aware, even in his family, of the special feeling he would have had on that occasion.
End Adv Sunday July 5
Undated (AP) _ EDITOR'S NOTE - For three generations a collection of family memoirs passed from attic to attic. At length, a great-great-grandnephew took a look. What he found was a saga of terror, bloodshed and intrigue, a personal account of one soldier who fought in the Russian army in World War I and witnessed the communist revolution. By ANDREW SELSKY Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - On the night of Jan. 5, 1918, a friend whispered a warning, provided a fast horse, and Valerian Yavorsky, a 25-year-old lieutenant, escaped certain death at the hands of the Russian soldiers he commanded.
A few days later he escaped execution once again, this time by the crazed officer who commanded him. And again and again after that when his jailers held a gun to his head and forced him to watch as others were tied to a tree and shot.
When death finally came it was at age 99 after a peaceful and varied career in the United States, as a tennis pro, industrial analyst and teacher. Yavorsky did not live to witness the collapse of the communist government which so terrorized him and he so despised.
Valerian Yavorsky was my father's great-uncle. His remarkable story is contained in a stack of memoirs passed down through my father to me.
The yellowing pages went unread for months before I got around to them. I discovered not the boring monologue I expected but a thriller, a tale of danger, betrayal and lucky escapes.
They form part of a fading collective memory of the Russian Revolution. As witnesses to that momentous event age and die, only such written accounts, and those retold by their families remain.
Yavorsky was born in 1893 and raised in Odessa. He was a medical student, a tennis champ and soccer player. His entire amateur soccer team enlisted in the army at the start of World War I. He completed officer training and became a company commander in January 1915 in the 4th Sharpshooters Division, fighting the Germans and their allies.
His memoirs describe his respect for his foes and the massive losses both sides suffered. He himself was wounded in battle three times.
"None of the Russian, French or English soldiers could be compared with the Germans," he wrote. "No one questioned their ability to fight and to die heroically."
"In a fight at Tziganka Mara, with about 50 soldiers left out of 250 after having turned back the Germans all day, we stopped them for the last time at six o'clock in the evening after twelve attacks. Oh, they could die, and that they did. My company was remanned during the night. The next morning we took the offensive."
In October 1917, Lenin, trying to consolidate his revolution and wipe out remnants of czarist rule, encouraged workers, peasants and soldiers to revolt. At that point Yavorsky found himself in danger of being slain by his own troops.
"You would not like to see what went on during those days at the front lines. I do not like to think of it either. ... Every soldier who did not like his officer could arrest that officer and even kill him without any trial. A shoemaker was now telling a general what to do if he wanted to stay alive."
On that fateful night of Jan. 5, 1918, revolutionaries in Yavorsky's division called a meeting of all enlisted men. No officers were allowed.
"About three o'clock in the morning my orderly quietly slipped in and, in a whisper, told me, 'Your honor,' and then corrected himself, 'Comrade Lieutenant, the meeting is over; you had better pack whatever you can take with you and run away from here. It was decided that all of you will be killed in the morning. I will have a horse ready for you in the back yard.'"
Yavorsky warned his commander, who told his officers to save themselves. Then he fled with two other lieutenants.
"Rifle, shoulder straps were discarded and all insignias from the military caps and coats which would have identified ourselves as officers were removed. We looked like soldiers deserting the front and we tried to act accordingly."
The three joined a "Battalion of Death" composed of officers who had left their divisions and were preparing to fight the revolutionaries. But "in two days we realized that our commander was not a normal person ... in those two days he personally killed about a dozen of his officers whom he did not trust completely and so the three of us decided to run away again."
Yavorsky returned to Odessa, where he enrolled in law and drama school. In March 1918, the new Soviet government signed a peace agreement with Germany. But civil war raged between the Red and the White army, which had been formed to oust Lenin's government.
As civil order in Odessa crumbled, Yavorsky joined a group of armed students who guarded banks and prisons and patrolled the streets. Three days later, the Red army captured the city and installed their secret police, the Cheka, later renamed the KGB.
On May 5, 1919, Yavorsky was on his way to a play rehearsal when the Cheka arrested him and accused him of being a Capt. Yavorsky of the White army. Although he had been in a White army unit - the "Battalion of Death" - for two days, he denied it.
He was held with 60 other prisoners in a former classroom. The commissar of the cell gave him the spot of a man who had been shot the previous night.
Guards periodically took prisoners away, telling them to leave their belongings behind - that they wouldn't need anything where they were going. Those prisoners were not seen again.
One day three guards took a man named Gregoriev away. The prisoners were ordered to the window.
"We all came and saw that the guards had led Gregoriev to a tree which stood in the yard," he wrote. "They offered to tie him to the tree, but he refused to be tied. Then they started putting a blindfold on, but he tore it off. He stood there against the tree facing the three guards with lifted rifles. 'Shoot,' the command (was) shouted, and by the force of the bullets Gregoriev was first pushed to the tree and then slowly settled down to the ground."
A Cheka officer, named only as Michail, told the prisoners that such a fate awaited all traitors.
"At night half a dozen men were taken away and I began to wonder how soon my turn would come. ... I was told secretly that those who were taken out had been taken across the street into the Cheka headquarters and shot there in the deep cellars so that the shooting wouldn't be audible from the outside."
Another night two prisoners, as they were being led across the street, threw salt and pepper they had been saving for weeks into the eyes of their guards and escaped.
"We never had salt and pepper brought in again."
One day, a guard came for Yavorsky.
A man named Severny, the head of the Cheka in Odessa, told him he would be forgiven of having been in the White army if he signed a confession.
Yavorsky, believing he would be signing his own death sentence, denied the charge. Michail came in and pointed a gun at him but Yavorsky repeated the denial and made up a story about being a socialist activist in the university before the war.
"I was fighting for my life. I called upon every stage trick I had learned at school. John Barrymore had nothing on me. The argument lasted for another hour and although the gun was next to my head most of the time, they could not shake me."
The other prisoners were surprised when Yavorsky was returned to the cell. The same day, a new prisoner - whom Yavorsky had known slightly - was put beside him for five days. The man tried to befriend Yavorsky and get him to admit he had been with the White army. Yavorsky, believing it was a trap, repeated his denials.
One day, the cell's commissar was taken away and shot in the yard without explanation.
Yavorsky was brought before Severny again and was told he was found innocent of having been in the White army. But he faced a new accusation - of having written an anti-communist poem. A typewritten copy of the poem was found in Yavorsky's desk.
Yavorsky had indeed written it, but explained that he had typed someone else's verses found at random as a typing lesson. Yavorsky was astounded when he was returned to the cell yet again.
The executions continued.
"One hysterical man was dragged out of the room. He was screaming his heart out, he was swearing, accusing the communists of doublecrossing, (he was a communist himself) and he shouted all the way down the steps and into the yard. He was yelling while they tied him to the tree and fought them until the shots were fired and he settled down at the roots of the tree.
"Every time a killing took place a truck was driven in and the motor was raced so the shots wouldn't be heard outside. Then the body was thrown on the truck and the show was over."
"Quite often we were ordered to the windows to witness executions of people from other rooms or cells. Sometimes I felt that perhaps it would be better to call an end to it. How much longer could a man last? Several in my room went mad and were taken away."
On May 27, a guard told Yavorsky to collect his things. Severny told him his explanations were believed and that he was a free man.
After he got home, Yavorsky saw himself in a mirror for the first time in weeks. "I didn't look so good." His brown hair had gone gray at the temples. He was only 26.
Being released by the Soviet government did not win him over to their side - his memoirs refer to them as murderers, hypocrites and liars.
Most of his friends were dead or in the White army.
He joined the White army's naval fleet and served there until the anti- communist forces were defeated in October 1920. He had married shortly before then and escaped on a boat with his bride to Turkey.
Two years later Yavorsky came to the United States, where he found work as a tennis instructor for several clubs and acted with Russian emigre theater in New York City.
In June 1929 he became the summer tennis pro at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulpher Springs, W.Va. In the winter, he taught at the Boca Raton Club in Florida and played exhibition games against such stars as Bill Tilden and Don Budge.
Another of his tennis partners was Frederick Rentschler, chief of Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. When the Greenbrier was converted to use as an Army hospital during World War II, Yavorsky got a job as an analyst for Pratt & Whitney in Connecticut. He worked there from 1942 until the mid-1950s.
In the 1960s, he moved to Boca Raton and taught mechanical drawing, tennis and art at St. Andrew's prep school there. Yavorsky and his wife, Eugenie, never had children.
He died in Boca Raton in 1979, 12 years before the collapse of the communist government. Few were aware, even in his family, of the special feeling he would have had on that occasion.
End Adv Sunday July 5
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