Anna's Shtetl

8. Nobility and Obscurity

The peasant who delivered ¤rewood was poor, but like Anna’s family, still above the lowest social level, which was occupied by beggars and servants. Similarly, the wealthy families, whether Jewish or Gentile, did not belong to the highest class, which was reserved for royalty. In the twin-towered palace of Korsun lived Princess Olga Valerianovna Lopukhina-Demidova. Her deceased husband was descended from the ¤rst wife of Peter the Great (Tsar Peter I). Anna believed that the princess owned not only the town, but also the surrounding villages and everything produced by the peasants there, from sugar beets to cows. Whether this was true or not, the princess was certainly in®uential.1 The princess seemed both benign and just in her treatment of the town and its people. She was liked by most townspeople, and much of the town could be said to make its living from the palace. The children of the princess often lived abroad, favoring Germany or France, but that was no more than the privilege of royalty. Anna’s day-to-day existence had little to do with the lives of this royal family. Occasionally though, she was an observer at the margin of the princess’s world. The tsar’s mother, dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna, visited Korsun in the summer of 1916 to raise money for the war. Arches of ®owers festooned her route in greeting as her ornate, four-horse carriage arrived from the railway station, bumping along the paving stones of the main street and turning north at the crossroads. The whole town stood at the side of the cobblestoned palace road—Korsun had no sidewalks—craning to catch sight of the royal visitor, who waved back to everyone. Anna was standing a block from the palace, near the two-story building housing the town’s fancy delicatessen on the ¤rst ®oor and the dentist on the second. The dentist and his wife had hung an oriental rug from their balcony, the way people in big cities did to welcome visiting dignitaries. 8 Nobility and Obscurity It was a week or two before school let out for the summer, and for this occasion the girls from the high school were told to wear their school uniform if they still had one to wear. With Russia at war for almost two years, not everyone had the proper uniform. Anna was wearing hers on that day, the brown pinafore with its high collar, long sleeves, and pleated skirt. The full-length white apron reserved for festive occasions fell from the ruf®ed shoulders of the brown dress. Anna’s mother, Leya, had made Anna’s apron out of a curtain. A visitor to the palace some time later had brought an automobile to Korsun. Stopping the car, the chauffeur got out to tinker with the engine. A crowd gathered, staring at his military-style uniform with expensive boots, and at the outlandish machine. The passengers sat patiently in the car until the chauffeur, having ¤nished his repair, climbed back into the driver’s seat to continue his progress toward the palace. Anna had seen an automobile in Kiev during a trip with her mother. For most Korsuners, though, it was the ¤rst one they had ever seen. On another occasion, Anna’s Aunt Meyndl took Anna to see a funeral procession for a member of the princess’s retinue. Standing among other townspeople on a granite bluff, they looked across the Ros River at the procession walking slowly along the bluff on the other side. This was not an ordinary funeral of a middle-class Christian. The Orthodox priest in charge of this distinguished funeral wore his colorful, magni¤cently embroidered vestments, while as many as ten young priests ®anked the path, chanting psalms, carrying icons on poles surmounted by cloths adorned with pictures of saints and the Virgin Mary. Other Jewish townspeople had more direct contact with the palace. The dentist (the same one who had hung out the rug in honor of the visiting dowager empress) not only catered to the royal household, but also dealt directly with the princess. So did Mr. Shmilyosel and Mr. Spector (no relation to Anna), who were the only Korsun tailors talented enough to design and make clothes for the princess. The princess’s staff bought premium foods at the fancy delicatessen or at a delicatessen on the street of butchers near the marketplace. These stores carried out-of-season fruit such as oranges and...