Signed Postogram to Andrei Vladimirovich Balashov, Related to the Death of General Pyotr Wrangel

One typewritten sheet, signed in ink by Baroness Wrangel. With the original address slip inscribed in manuscript "?????? ????????????? ????????" (To Andrei Vladimirovich Balashov). Signed message from Baroness Olga Wrangel to White Army officer and émigré activist Andrei Balashov, thanking the Union of the Sworn in Sofia for its condolences following the death of her husband, General Pyotr Wrangel. A signed communication from Baroness Olga Mikhailovna Wrangel, widow of General Pyotr Wrangel, to the White Army officer and later leading anti-Soviet émigré activist Andrei Balashov. Signed in ink "????????? ????????" (Baroness Wrangel), the document is dated 10 May 1928 at Brussels, fifteen days after Wrangel's death there on 25 April. Addressed to "Mr. A. V. Balashov," it asks him to convey her gratitude to the head of the Union of the Sworn (???? ????????????) in Sofia: "????? ???????? ???????????? ????? ???????????? ? ????? ??? ????????? ????????????? ?? ??????? ???? ????????? ?????? ??????? ? ????????? ???? ? ??? ????? ??????? ???." ("Please convey to the head of the Union of the Sworn in Sofia my heartfelt gratitude for the warm sympathy, which deeply touched me, in the great sorrow that has befallen me and my family.") The Union of the Sworn was an anti-Bolshevik émigré organization associated with the clandestine Brotherhood of Russian Truth, which Balashov had joined in 1927. It was subsequently incorporated into the Brotherhood while retaining its internal organization as an autonomous section. Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel (1878-1928) was one of the principal commanders of the White movement and the last commander-in-chief of its forces in southern Russia. In April 1920 he succeeded Anton Denikin and reorganized the remaining Armed Forces of South Russia as the Russian Army, which he commanded from Crimea until its defeat by the Red Army that November. Wrangel then organized the evacuation of the army and tens of thousands of civilians from Crimea. Unwilling to regard military defeat as the end of the struggle against Bolshevism, he sought in exile to preserve the Russian Army as an organized force and to maintain the political and military cohesion of the White emigration, eventually establishing the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS) in 1924. Wrangel consequently became one of the principal symbols of organized anti-Bolshevik resistance outside Soviet Russia. In 1926 he settled in Brussels, from where he continued to direct the organization until his death in April 1928. The recipient, Andrei Vladimirovich Balashov (1889-1969), served in the 11th Izyum Hussar Regiment during the First World War and subsequently joined the Volunteer Army, becoming chronicler of the reconstituted Izyum Hussars during the Civil War. Evacuated with the Russian Army to Gallipoli, he remained there until 1922 before settling in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. He later became an important figure in the organized anti-Soviet émigré movement, founding the propaganda and fundraising organization Union "All for the Fatherland" (Vse - Rodine) in 1924 and joining the clandestine Brotherhood of Russian Truth in 1927; he subsequently headed its Belgian branch. Balashov's date of birth remains uncertain: his diary records 3/16 October 1889, the date accepted by Nikolaeva-Tendil, while official documents give 3 October 1891. Balashov preserved an extensive archive documenting both his own career and the activities of the White émigré movement. Ekaterina O. Nikolaeva-Tendil, a historian and specialist in Russian art and archives who discovered the collection in Belgium, spent several years sorting, identifying, and cataloguing its contents and prepared the descriptions for its sale at Cazo. In her subsequent study of the archive, she describes it as the only presently known archive documenting the activities of the Brotherhood of Russian Truth on such a comprehensive scale. The collection was dispersed through a series of Cazo sales beginn. …