Our Notes & References

The Russian Navy and the Americas: warmly inscribed by one of the authors to the first Russian submarine commander in the Pacific. “Very rare” (Savine) illustrated émigré publication, with historical folding maps featuring the arctic coast of Russia from Europe to the North-West passage and the Alaska.

The compendium is divided into two parts, each comprising thematic articles written by different Navy officers and commanders. The first part is an overview of the history and achievements of the Russian Navy from the times of Peter the Great (creation of the Russian fleet) up until the first post-revolution year. It focuses in particular on Siberia, the history of the Alaskan Russian-American colonies and on discoveries in the Arctic and the North Pacific.

The second part is dedicated mostly to Russian naval officers in the US, especially the Association of Former Russian Naval Officers in America, which was established in New York in May 1923 by a group of 90 senior officers of the Russian Navy.

The book features valuable contemporary materials, including official documents, orders, service lists and biographies.

Provenance

Handwritten dedication on the title page to Alexander Vladimirovich Plotto from one of the authors, Vladimir Shmidt (1883-1965), Russian captain and a hero of the Port Arthur defense; after the October Revolution, he immigrated to the US where he became a noted hydrographer, a lecturer at Columbia University, and the first churchwarden of the Russian Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in New York.

Aleksander von Plotto (1869 – 1948) was a rear admiral, first submarine commander in the Pacific during the Russo-Japanese War. After the Russian Civil War, immigrated to Greece at the invitation of Queen Olga.

Avenir Nizoff (émigré, pianist, who lived in Edmonton, Canada, in the second half of the 20^th century, and gathered a large, wide-ranging library of Russian works, especially covering art, history and literature).