Helen Tisdel De Wollant Papers

The collection documents HTDW's activities and experiences in Russia between 1898 and 1920, as well as her activities in Washington, D.C. between 1920 and 1950. Most notably, it contains an unpublished memoir, My Homes in Russia, 1898-1920, in which HTDW describes everyday life in the Russian countryside, in St. Petersburg during the February 1905 Revolution, and in Yalta, Crimea before and after the October Revolution. The memoir also focuses on the relationships between ethnicities and classes, the customs and views of the "common" people, the role of Orthodoxy in Russian life and culture, and HDTW’s and GADW’s first-hand encounters with Nicholas II and his wife Empress Alexandra. In addition, the collection contains two versions of a detailed diary which HTDW kept from late 1917 through 1920. Transcribed and incorporated into the memoir, the diaries chronicle HTDW’s experiences as a member of the persecuted upper class in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution, describing the anarchy, violence, searches, deprivations, and forced redistribution of wealth that characterized the Russian Civil War period, as well as the occupation of Crimea by various revolutionary factions and by the German forces at the end of World War I. Also included is correspondence with HTDW’s sisters, post-1920 correspondence with relatives who remained in Russia, and later correspondence pertaining to the possible publication of My Homes in Russia. Also included are personal notes and drafts; remittances for food relief packages sent by HTDW to friends and relatives in Russia in the 1920’s; official documents, among them a passport and GADW’s will; a sealing stamp; and photographs of HTDW in her youth.