While producing a photo of Grand Duke Andrei (Andrew) Vladimirovich, referring to a book by Alex Butterworth, the author of "Russian Portraits" Mark Shernick points to an online history of an alleged Order of St. John and that; ”In the Struggle Against International Anarchists The SOSJ [Added] An American Grand Priory." The online history referred to is here.

Mark Shernick here is trying to make a connection with what Alex Butterworth referred to as the Brotherhood, and as Butterworth wrote; “the nascent extreme nationalist movement the Black Hundreds, a recrudescence of the worse aspects of the Holy Brotherhood of the early 1880s.” (Butterworth, The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Agents, 2010, kindle loc. 7532.)

But while the person on the picture is indeed Grand Duke Andrew the imagery has nothing to do with the Order of St. John. Instead the photo is borrowed from the famous bilingual publication: Album du bal costume' au Palais d'hiver, Fevrier 1903. 21 photogravures et 174 phototypies. SPb, 1904. And Andrew is here simple sporting the gala attire of the falconer to His Tsarist Majesty from the times of Alexis Mikhailovich. Other members of the imperial family dressed up as well... Nicholas and Alexandra were dressed like a Tsar and a Tsarina from the 17th century in famous images. Andrew’s brother, Grand Duke Boris, wore the costume of an officer of the Tsarist lancers.

The above article link appears to be an internal history of the Charles Pichel (Shickshinny) order. And while as we have seen above some of it is clearly made up, if there is some truth to this history, then we also have here an example of some of the pro-German Monarchist’s the British representative in Russia Bruce Lockhart reported about in 1918.

And while Mark Shernick trying to make a direct connection might be unwarranted, Thourot-Pichel himself was known for his fascist leanings. According to an in depth book by Russ Bellant, Pichel was an adviser (via correspondence from the U.S.) to Hitler aide Ernst Hanfstaengl. Bellant also details that Pichel's Order was being led by anti-Semites who have worked with the quasi-Nazi Liberty Lobby, and with neofascist Lyndon LaRoche groups." (Russ Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party: Domestic fascist networks and their effect on U.S. cold war politics, 1991, p. 45)

As seen elsewhere, it is indeed in context of the Black Hundreds related organizations that we also have the “pro-German” faction of the Monarchists.

But when the February Revolution commenced, the Black Hundred proved incapable of offering any resistance to the revolutionaries. The revolution exposed the movement for what it was—an empty shell propped up by an undemocratic electoral process and a government slush fund. However by 1918 the Bolshevik “Reds” provided an insidious political foe for “Whites” that fit earlier apocalyptic Black Hundred warnings. That year German forces advanced deep into former Imperial Russian territory in 1918, most notably into the Ukraine, where right-wing German officers interacted with their monarchical Russian or Ukrainian counterparts on a large scale for the first time. German–White cooperation in the Ukraine set a precedent for further international right-wing alliances after Imperial Germany lost World War I.

Before the revolution in Russia, right wing groups in Imperial Germany and the Russian Empire established detailed anti-Western, anti-socialist, and anti-Semitic ideologies in the period leading up to the 1917 Russian Revolution. Largely internally orientated völkisch German thought drew on the idealistic views of Arthur Schopenhauer, Richard Wagner, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Whereby Russian radical right beliefs were associated with the Slavophiles, and expressed apocalyptic visions of Jewish world conspirators who threatened to ruin Imperial Russia and eventually the world.

As explained in an earlier 2003 seminar, this led to the transfer of extremist anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic White views to postwar völkisch German circles in Berlin and Munich.

As a result pretender to the Russian throne Grand Duke Kirill (Cyril) Vladimirovich of Russia moved from the French Riviera to Bavaria.

Grand Duke Kirill and his wife Viktoria channeled approximately 500,000 gold marks to support nationalist German–Russian undertakings. Also the right wing, anti-Semitic American industrialist and politician Henry Ford gave considerable sums of money to Kirill’s representative in America, the Aufbau member Boris Brazol. Brazol then transferred funds to Kirill and Viktoria for use in financing far right organizations in Germany, notably the National Socialist Party and Aufbau. (James and Suzanne Pool, Hitlers Wegbereiter zur Macht, trans. Hans Thomas,1978, p.107.)

While in Germany, Russian monarchist émigrés tried to reprise their old organizational tactics—and met with the same result. They loosely divided into two camps: one comprising the extreme right wing Nazi affiliated Aufbau group, and the other gathered around the Soiuz vernykh (Union of the Faithful), which Nikolai Yevgenyevich Markov (known as Markov II) led after his emigration to Berlin in 1920.  Markov was a Russian political figure who before the revolution was a leading figure in the Union of the Russian People (URP). Despite the Union’s use of illegal Black Hundred squads to terrorize and assassinate Jewish and socialist opponents, Imperial authorities supported the Union.

Markov II Hoping to gather both camps under his own leadership, organized a monarchist congress in Berlin from May 29 to June 5, 1921. With 105 delegates, a majority of whom had been URP or Russian National Union of the Archangel Michael (UAM) members, the congress called for the restoration of the monarchy in Russia and voted to create a Supreme Monarchical Council to unify the movement under Markov’s leadership. Shortly thereafter, however, the two camps grew antagonistic. Suspicious of German attempts at a rapprochement with the Soviet government, Markov adopted a pro French orientation, while Aufbau maintained its insistence on German-Russian unity. Markov, who insisted that Russia’s future monarchy regain the Imperial borders, also took offense at Aufbau’s inclusion of nationalist Ukrainians and Balts, for whom Aufbau envisioned autonomous states. Finally, the two camps had divergent candidates for the throne, with Aufbau supporting Grand Prince Kirill Romanov, grandson of Tsar Alexander II, while Markov’s group advocated Grand Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov, grandson of Tsar Nicholas I.

Aside from holding congresses, the monarchists reprised another of their former tactics—political assassination. On March 28, 1922, Russian monarchists attempted to kill Pavel Miliukov as he left the stage after an address to émigrés at Berlin’s Philharmonic Hall. Although the assassins missed their target, they accidentally shot and killed Vladimir Nabokov, father of the acclaimed Russian novelist.

Although the botched assassination of Miliukov seems to have been a collaborative effort between the Aufbau and Markov camps, the bitter schism among the groups remained. With the monarchists divided into two bitterly feuding camps, their effectiveness was severely compromised.

When Aufbau next acted as a key organizer of Hitler’s infamous failed coup, German soldiers killed the Aufbau leader, Max von Scheubner-Richter.

Markov continued to publish anti Semitic tracts well into the 1930s. As for the URP’s legacy, Markov bragged that the URP represented the “exact prototype” of fascist movements and that he considered the URP druzhina to be a forerunner of the Nazis’ SA paramilitary formation. (N. E. Markov, Istoriia Evreiskogo shturma Rossii, 1937, p. 22, see also J. Langer, Corruption and the Counterrevolution, 2007.)

Finally, if there is some truth in the history as presented in the quoted link (www.osjknights.com/History-After-Malta.htm) then we have here a virtual who is who of the pro-German right wing Monarchist. Not only is there is a direct reference to ”The American Grand Priory also had a history of cooperation with members of the monarchist and anti-Semitic Russian Black Hundred’s Movement”, similarly counts for a number of the individuals listed as having played a leading role in the Russian inspired Order of St.John.

For one example see “Awaloff-Bermondt OSJ” who is listed as the Order’s Grandmaster in 1933.

The adventurer who became known as the dashing Caucasian noble Colonel Pavel Bermondt-Avalov (Paul Mikhailovitch Bermondt) initially belonged to the above mentioned Black Hundred movement. (Letter to the editorial staff of Volia Rossii from February 28,1921, Administrative Center of the Non-Party Association, a Russian emigre organization in Prague, Russian State Archives of Socio- Political History, Moscow, fond 5893, opis I, delo 201, 87.)

Bermondt-Avalov ‘s further  involvement with the Latvian Intervention, of a combined anti-Bolshevik German/ White force, built upon the international right-wing collaboration that had been established during the German occupation of the Ukraine in 1918.

Thus committed to the idea of a nationalist German–Russian alliance Bermondt-Avalov wrote from Latvia to Wolfgang Kapp (known for his later Kapp Putsch):

“I would like to emphasize my unshakeable intention to collaborate with those German circles that support our efforts ...I willingly commit myself to do everything that serves the common interests of Russia and Germany, which were friends for centuries and should have remained so.” (Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Property, Berlin, Repositur 92, number 815, 88.)

After his arrival in Germany he arranged for Russian Monarchist alliances with German right-wing groups such as "Steel Helmet, League of Front Soldiers." It was part of the "Black Reichswehr" and its goals were a German dictatorship, the preparation of a revanchist program, and the direction of local anti-parliamentarian action.

The above Pichel article also proceeds with ”Grand Master Prince Awaloff became head of the Russian Fascist Party in Germany, called the Russian National Liberation Movement (ROND).”

ROND, was a militaristic organization, patterned on the (Nazi Party) NSDAP's Sturmabteilung (hence SA). ROND used the SA's Horst Wessel Song as its hymn and members also attacked political opponents and Jews along the lines of the SA. The official uniform of ROND dress included a black shirt with a green and white swastika. (Report from January 23, 1938, Center for the Preservation of Historical-Documentary Collections, Moscow, fond 284, opis I, delo 69,8.)

In the end, Bermondt-Avalov damaged his cause when he was arrested for embezzling 50,000 marks in August 1934, imprisoned for three months, and then expelled from Germany. He resurfaced in Rome, where he sought to lead a group of White émigré fascists under Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime, but with little success. (French  National Security, Surete Nationale, report from June 1935, Center for the Preservation of  Historical-Documentary Collections, Moscow, fond 7, opis I, delo 922, reel 3, 238.)

What is somewhat puzzling is that where the Pichel Order article lists Bermondt-Avalov as the Grandmaster of the American OSJ in 1933. Bermondt-Avalov (unless evidence can be found for important earlier visits) is listed as having moved to the US at the beginning of WWII, see also here.

A previous co-worker of Pichel in fact accused the later of creating an invented history of the order (for details see here). A 2006 dissertation by Hendrik Johannes Hoegen Dijkhof however rejects this idea.

The dissertation by Hoegen Dijkhof, strange as it might be, also states as fact that the above mentioned “Grand Duke Cyrill, Head of the Imperial House of Romanov in France, formally conferred Hereditary Commander titles to Thourot-Pichel’s Order of St. John of Jerusalem in the name of the Russian Grand Priory.” (Hoegen Dijkhof, 2006, p.238.)

The supposed refoundation of this “grand priory” in 1910 that Hoegen Dijkhof refers to was in fact invented with forged documents – Grand Duke Alexander was never involved in any such organization before 1928 as one can easily see from his own memoirs. In 1928 the organization he gave “protection” to was a society of descendants and in any case he had no more authority to legitimize any such body than you or me. As a junior member of the Imperial family he had no more authority than any other Russian citizen – or for that matter in the UK any junior member of the British royal family – to found, refound or give his (worthless) protection to an Order of Knighthood.

And as we shall see in the following link, none of the various bodies claiming a Russian origin with which various descendants of the imperial family had long or short involvements with have any legitimacy whatsoever as Order of Knighthood, and their use of the name St John has no justification.

 

Discussion:  The alleged Russian Orders of St. John

 

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