An unusual woman in the life of an unusual man

FAMILY ENCOUNTERS AND PARTINGS

After a short while Skoropadsky’s wife and daughter boarded a train at the Kyiv train station and left for St. Petersburg. Their departure heralded the beginning of a complicated and responsible period in Skoropadsky’s life. In November 1917 the Central Rada appointed Lieutenant-General Skoropadsky commander of the armed forces of the Ukrainian National Republic in Right-Bank Ukraine. This decision was a safe bet on the part of the Ukrainian leaders. The 1st Ukrainian Corps was an advanced military unit and served as a reliable safeguard from Bolshevik attacks. However, as it so often happens, our public figures ultimately repaid the favor with black ingratitude. In late 1917 Skoropadsky resigned as corps commander and by early 1918 he was a private individual.

His resignation was largely spurred by the fears of the socialist majority in the Central Rada that he would use his sizeable corps to mount a “rightist” military coup. It should be stressed that they had every reason to be anxious. In late 1917 Skoropadsky began seriously considering the possibility of creating a strong, autocratic government that would be capable of repelling Soviet Russia’s intervention and putting an end to all the “disorder” in the country. Later, in the spring of 1918, he became close to certain influential people, who wanted to establish a new system in Ukraine based on strong, efficient government and private ownership. On April 29, 1918, supported by both domestic conservative elements and the Germans, who had captured Ukraine by this time, Lieutenant General Skoropadsky (Ret.) was proclaimed hetman of Ukraine.

In addition to other complications, the Bolshevik coup soon caused a major disruption in Skoropadsky’s communication with his wife and children. There were no replies to his numerous letters to St. Petersburg. This may be attributed not only to the imperfect mail and telegraph communications but also to the infamous Red Terror that was beginning to spread its tentacles throughout Russia. Skoropadsky’s colleagues undertook an energetic search for his family but failed to find them. His aide Hnat Zelenevsky later wired Skoropadsky the encouraging news that his family was safe and sound and living in Orel (Russia).

Not only did Zelenevsky acquit himself well, he also quickly took stock of the situation in Orel and advised Alexandra and the children to leave the city at once. She followed his advice, and rightly so: a few days after their departure a new wave of Bolshevik repressions swept through the city. However, Skoropadsky lost contact with his family again, and on April 29, 1918, after he had accepted the hetman’s mace on behalf of part of the Ukrainian nation, he was completely unaware of his family’s whereabouts and well-being. Hetman Skoropadsky learned that his family had returned to St. Petersburg only in May 1918.

Alina and the children had to be immediately evacuated from the “Bolshevik kingdom,” and the security of the hetman’s family was only one reason. Another one was that with Skoropadsky’s family members in its hands, Lenin’s government could start using them as a powerful lever to manipulate the hetman. Initially, Skoropadsky intended to be united with his family following a German victory (he hoped that Emperor Wilhelm’s troops would soon conquer Orel). However, it turned out that Orel was not on the Germans’ military agenda. Nevertheless, Skoropadsky found a way to resolve this troubling personal issue through diplomatic channels, and the Soviet government decided to allow his family to leave for Ukraine. On June 29, 1918, state train no. 1 brought Alexandra and the children from St. Petersburg to Kyiv. By this time Skoropadsky had not seen them for eight months.

As befits an imperial general’s daughter, Alexandra instantly and unconditionally accepted the fact of her husband’s high position and his cause. Her husband was creating a state based on the restoration of private property and land ownership for landlords, which was much closer to her worldview than the various “people’s” and “socialist” republics of the Central Rada and the Bolsheforming insurgent detachments, they launched an energetic struggle against “the landlords’ hetman.” A bomb planted by a young left-wing socialist revolutionary killed German General Eichhorn, and attempts on Skoropadsky’s life were in the making. Fully aware that socialist-revolutionary terrorists might target their children, the Skoropadskys decided to send all of them, except their little son Pavlo, to Odesa in the late summer of 1918. As they were seeing them off at the Kyiv train station, the Skoropadskys realized that they would not see them for a long time.

In the fall of 1918 a series of hardships beset the Skoropadskys. In September they were plunged into grief when their son Pavlo died of an incurable disease. In late November Kyiv was surrounded by Symon Petliura’s revolutionary army, and the Germans advised the Skoropadskys to fly to Odesa to join their children. But the hetman refused, as this would be tantamount to a shameful escape. On Dec. 14, 1918, Hetman Skoropadsky abdicated and, realizing that the Petliurites were hunting for him, by the end of the month he and his wife left for Germany on a German troop train.

Their children’s lives were no less dramatic. As long as the Entente Powers and the White Guards controlled Odesa, the former hetman’s children were safe. However, in March 1919 Soviet troops began approaching the Black Sea port, forcing Maria, Yelyzaveta, and Petro to move to the Crimea. Soon the peninsula was also under threat of a Bolshevik invasion. The young Skoropadskys were forced to travel extensively through Romania, Greece, and Italy. Weeks and months passed, without the children seeing their parents. The ex-hetman’s family was finally reunited in Switzerland in the summer of 1919. In the early 1920s the family immigrated to Germany and settled in the small city of Wannsee.

EMIGRATION

During their sojourn abroad the Skoropadskys had continuous financial difficulties. The family lived mostly on a small financial monthly allowance that Skoropadsky, as a “friend of Germany,” received from various German governments, including Hitler’s. By the end of the month the family purse was usually empty, and even fairly inexpensive things had to be purchased on credit. At one point, in the middle of a particularly severe financial crisis, the Skoropadskys were forced to pawn a beautiful dinner set that they had received as a wedding present from their close relations.

Alexandra took charge of all the household duties. She was an excellent housewife and mother, and often helped her husband with practical advice, never complaining about the great difficulties of emigre life. This was unusual for a high society lady, which she had been only a short while earlier. Alina was also an excellent pianist and fostered a love of music in her children. Despite her preoccupation with domestic chores, she found the time to write a book on the genealogy of the Skoropadsky and Durnovo families. Those who read it were almost unanimous in their opinion that it was a more serious and detailed study than those written by some professional historians.

Skoropadsky openly admired than anything else in the world he was afraid of losing his better half. Sometimes when he would come home while his wife was out, he would call out in a nervous, loud voice in all the languages he knew: “Where is Alina? Where’s my wife?”

The Skoropadsky children were their parents’ helpmates and support. Danylo was a good student and musician; in Germany he acquired a higher education in a technical field. Yelyzaveta became a gifted sculptor. Maria was a medical student, and Olena, their youngest daughter, who was born in emigration when her mother was 42 years old, was a brilliant student in her gymnasium. In one of her school compositions Olena described her parents as an ideal couple.

Skoropadsky did not abandon politics in emigration, where he headed the hetman monarchist movement, appointing as hetmanych his son Danylo, who was a promising young man and his heir. When World War II broke out and Skoropadsky and his son faced the possibility of an early death, the ex-hetman issued an order stating that his wife Alexandra could head the hetman regent council if both he and his son died and one of their daughters would inherit the title.

A MEETING THAT DID NOT TAKE PLACE

During the war the Skoropadsky family’s situation was far from easy. Every day their life was becoming increasingly worrisome and uneasy. Eventually food became scare, while the number of Anglo-American air raids steadily increased. Bombs were heard exploding nearby, at a dangerously close distance, and with increasing frequency. But the ex-hetman’s family was used to turbulent circumstances. During the bombings the Skoropadskys did not run to an air-raid shelter. Instead, they remained at home because they considered running away from danger beneath their dignity. During one bombardment Skoropadsky looked at his family with admiration: there was not a trace of fear on their faces. However, another hardship was looming at the horizon.

Towards the end of the war Alexandra and the children moved to the city of Oberstdorf. One day in April the elderly Skoropadsky and his daughter Yelyzaveta went to the Plattling train station to wait for a train to rejoin their family. Skoropadsky had a gut feeling that he would never see his wife again. His presentiment was reinforced by the fact that the train was late.

After a few minutes it finally pulled up to the platform. The weight fell from Skoropadsky’s heart, and he figured that the ominous foreboding was just a figment of his troubled imagination. But a few minutes later Allied airplanes approached the station and started dropping bombs.

Fleeing from certain death, father and daughter hid in the train station. A deafening explosion knocked Yelyzaveta unconscious. When she came to, she heard her father’s weak voice asking for something to drink.

Skoropadsky had suffered a severe head injury and died on April 26, 1945 in the hospital of the small German city of Metten. Yelyzaveta later recalled that in his final hours her father was hallucinating that his wife and her mother had come for him.