Wednesday, October 17, 2007

New Document Gallery

We have now moved this site from Dreamhost.com over to WordPress.com. This means that the site will be automatically updated. This will reduce the time needed to magage the site which should increase the time for writing new posts.

In the move, we dropped the separate photo gallery (which was broken anyway) and have started using the simple gallery built into recent versions of WordPress.

You can get to this gallery by clicking Documents Gallery up above in the header.

Currently there are many scans of historical documents and photos.

As you enter an album you will see thumbnail images. Click on any thumbnail to see a medium size image. Click again to see the full size image. You will have to click on the "Go back one page" button to return to the gallery.

We will be working on giving these images full titles and better descriptions.

Monday, October 8, 2007

Photos of the Kudashev House in St Petersburg

975071431_dac07d3eed_m

Photos of the house (palace?) belonging to Prince Serge Vladimirovitch Kudashev are available at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aceit/tags/57bolshayamorskaya/

The building at 57 Bolshaya Morskaya now contains a dentist office, the law offices of the American firm Baker & McKenzie and some residences in the rear courtyard.

Photos taken by Theo Armour on a trip to St Petersburg in 2004.

Email from Marion: Berdyaev & Koudacheff-Rolland Updates

tn_count_potocki_1780-1781

Portrait of Count Potacki in 1781 by David, click on it for link to source.

Cousin Marion has sent in the following updates:

Concerning Berdyaev, there is a chapter: "cercle de famille" in a book written by Donald Lowrie: Rebellious Prophet written in 1960. There is a long description of the French connection through the marriage of Mathilde Choiseul-Gouffier to Serge Danilovitch Koudacheff. I got this book through my grandfather's wife, Lucy Marsh Leggett-Koudacheff when she died or before, I cannot remember.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Portrait of Moltedo by Ingres

ingres-moltedo


The portrait of Joseph-Antoine Moltedo (born 1775), painted circa 1810 by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (French, 1780–1867) now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. From some time in the 1800's until 1906 it was hung in the house of Princess Vera Kudashev in St Petersburg.

Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev

nikolaiberdyaev


Image from Wikipedia

Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948) was a Russian philosopher and religious mystic. His mother was Princess Alexandra Kudashev (1835- ??). On the Berdyaev web site there is no mention whatsoever of "Kudashev" or any of his other ancestors. There is, however, a very interesting analysis of the influence of his family on Berdyaev in the acts of the 22nd International Congress of Genealogy and Heraldry.

Time Magazine 1934-04-16: Romain Rolland Engaged to Marie Koudachev

rolland-koudachev
photo from http://www.europe-revue.info/portfolios/portfoliorolland.htm

Romain Rolland won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915. He was a writer and playwright, educator, critic and musician. Wikipedia describes him as a "A teacher, a pacifist, and a loner". Nonetheless he was married twice. The second time to Marie Kudashev (1895-1985) - the half-French, half-Russian widow of a Kudashev. Their engagement was announced in Time magazine. The image above shows the two of of them together - the photo taken perhaps through a reflection of an image of a solitary man.

NY Times 1918-11-02: To Wed Russian Princess

Norman Armour to Wed Russian Princess

On the Second of November 1918 the New York Times announced the engamement of Norman Armour to Princess Myra Kudashev.