Russian family and strange-looking mandolin

[vkioulaphides]

Greetings, all.

Just for your amusement, I attach two photographs of the Russian branch of my family after they had repatriated to Greece from Imperial Russia's Far East, and after my great-grandfather had already perished in 1911 in Tripoli, Libya, leaving the family destitute. In one photo are all four children (my grandfather Victor is furthest on the left) with their mother, my great-grandmother in the middle. The other one is of the two daughters; Sonia, the youngest (who died youngest, quite tragically) is the one with the instrument.

As far as I can tell, the instrument has eight (8) strings, so it’s more like a strange-looking mandolin than a domra. Has anyone ever seen such a thing? It has a very strange sound-box, curved inwards on all sides except the bottom. I never saw this instrument around the house when I was a little boy in the '60s; these pictures were taken in the 1930s, well before my time, so the instrument may have easily gone missing in between, somewhere between the horrors of World War II, the famine, the illnesses, the untimely deaths...

[CES]

Sorry, can’t offer any info on the instrument, but the pics are very cool! You should post the second one in the Women with Mandolins thread!

[Luna Pick]

Yes, cool photos.

I'm no expert but given the 8 strings, apparent scale length and popularity of the mandolin at the time my guess is that it's a mandolin. The builder got creative with the body design.

[vic-victor]

Probably Greek-made mandolin, as I have not seen any similar ones in Russia.

[Bill Clements]

Nice photos, Victor!
Now we know where your good looks and musical talent originated!

[AndyV]

Sonia was really feeling it. Gosh I want to hear what she'd playing!

Sweet looking mandolin.

[vkioulaphides]

Probably Greek-made mandolin, as I have not seen any similar ones in Russia.

That's also possible. The family traveled a lot, so there's no telling where they may have picked it up. Male members of my family were in Odessa as far back as the 1840s, often married to Russian women, and may have found themselves caught amidst all the turmoil of the Crimean War of 1853-1856. Then they moved far east to Vladivostok, then a young city, built only in 1860, then from there a bit southwards to Port Arthur (now Liushun, Dalian Province, China), only to get caught again in the outbreak of the Russian-Japanese War of 1804-1805. From there they moved inland, to Laoyan and perhaps Harbin (China), as we have documents of business dealings with the Manchurian Army of the Russian Empire at the time, deep into present-day China. After that, who knows what? They made a stop in Irkutsk, where one of the children was baptized. Were they trying to get back to Odessa? Finally, they boarded a ship in Syracuse, Italy, bound for Tripoli, Libya, where my great-grandfather died. We have several photographs— a luxury at that time— dedicated and signed in florid, cursive Russian manuscript, which none of us can read. So much remains to be discovered...

[vkioulaphides]

Nice photos, Victor!
Now we know where your good looks and musical talent originated!

Haha... thanks, Bill. I don't know about the looks but I'll tell you this: it is deeply touching that a family that was ruined so totally, so abjectly, so many times, would find the time and energy to devote to their love of music. A tough life... by 1914, my great-grandmother, widowed, mother of four small children, managed to get a boarding pass from the erstwhile Kingdom of Greece so she could sail back from Tripoli to Mytilene, the "cradle" of her late husband's family. She was only 31, didn't speak a word of Greek, and had four children to support. My grandfather, the "man of the family" at age 12, was appointed breadwinner-in-chief. Tough...

[vkioulaphides]

Sonia was really feeling it. Gosh I want to hear what she'd playing!

Sweet looking mandolin.

She was adorable, indeed. Her untimely death of tuberculosis, after the family had re-re-re-re-settled in Athens, left the family forever scarred. She was reputed among her kin to have been the one with the greatest, natural talent for music in the family.

[vkioulaphides]

Yes, cool photos.

I'm no expert but given the 8 strings, apparent scale length and popularity of the mandolin at the time my guess is that it's a mandolin. The builder got creative with the body design.

That, for sure. Both my Russian friend Tamara Volskaya and Dutch guitarist / musicologist Tom Edskes are looking into the provenance of that odd-looking instrument, Tamara in Russia, Tom in various archives.

[Jim Garber]

Very cool. I could no figure out why I kept on clicking and never saw the larger photos. Then I realized that these were pdfs. I lightened and sharpened the images a bit and reposted below so they will behave now.



Here is one somewhat similar but no real cigar and I am not sure where dither of these came from:

[Mandophile]

You might want to start here. While I haven't read the entire book, it was only just published in 2017 and the authors can be contacted. I used it in my research on a specific Greek immigrant composer who contributed to the music catalog of Pietro Tesio. Go directly to the website and you'll get a nice intro into the rich Greek music history! this book is 324+ pages. when you go to the link, just enter 'mandolin' in the search field and voila! lots of very enticing photographs and detailed background. You just might find it interesting even if you can't identify the mandolin for sure.

George Constantzos, Thomas Tamvakos, and Athanasios Trikoupis. Hellenes Composers of Thrace, Translations by Marina Nicolakopoulou, Robin Jeffrey, and Athanasios Trikoupis. Region of East Macedonia & Thrace, Regional Unit of Evros: Alexandroupolis, Greece, 2017. 144. The authors cite references to support his education as probably in Constantinople. His place of birth confirmed as Rodosto (Rhaedestus in classical history).
To view book online:
https://issuu.com/pliroforiki.evrou/...tis_thrakis_en

[Frankdolin]

Thanks VK awesome photos and better story...

[vkioulaphides]

[QUOTE=Jim Garber;1661826]Very cool. I could no figure out why I kept on clicking and never saw the larger photos. Then I realized that these were pdfs. I lightened and sharpened the images a bit and reposted below so they will behave now. Here is one somewhat similar but no real cigar and I am not sure where dither of these came from:

Thanks a million, Jim. Yes, yes... that's a very similar mandolin! We'll identify it, sooner or later. I cannot say that I've ever seen anything like that but mandolins have certainly come in a bewildering variety of shapes and sizes so... why not this one?

One has to understand how fantastically multicultural the Russian Empire was, what rich variety of wares were traded across its vast landscape. The instrument in question could have been German-made, for example, and that should not surprise anyone in the least.

For another, ancillary example, that branch of my family always spoke French at home. I attributed it to vanity, pretense: just another wealthy family of merchants aping Russia's Francophone gentry. But no; my great-grandmother's mother was in fact of French descent!

I doubt, however, that my ancestors would have bought a mandolin when they were hanging on for dear life; the far more logical assumption is that they would have acquired a musical instrument and the finer things in life when they were prosperous merchants.

Much remains to be dug up and dated. As this is the Mandolin Cafe I only bring up the instrument in question here. The samovars and porcelain will have to be investigated elsewhere...

[vkioulaphides]

Thank you very much, Mandophile. Yes, my remote ancestors were so called Pontian Greeks i.e. the Greeks that lived around the Black Sea. Our family surname comes from the Farsi (Persian) word "kullah" meaning "skullcap" as it was customary at that time to wear such a cap under your hat. So some ancestor must have made or sold such caps and was thus given that regional trade-name.

As intermarriage between social classes was virtually unthinkable at that time and within that era's socioeconomic milieu, my great-grandfather's bride Maria came with the equally merchantly maiden name Zolotukhin, derived from "zolota", meaning "gold". They may have been either goldsmiths or (more likely) traders in gold. We still have her dowry document intact! Mandolin?

[vkioulaphides]

Thanks VK awesome photos and better story...

Always happy to share. Musical instruments aren't just property, inanimate objects; they have a story to tell, sometimes joyous, sometimes sad. So is life. It is simply unthinkable that my family would have acquired a mandolin when mere survival was an all-consuming struggle. Just to give you a more palpable idea of abject poverty: during World War II, my grandfather worked as a rubble remover. Yup, you read that right. He would take his wheelbarrow (which I got to ride in as a happy, little boy ) and would trek a couple of kilometers down to the nearby airport and haul rubble for a living. And there was plenty of it lying around: first the Italians bombed the Athens airport, then the Germans did, then the Germans occupied Greece and the British bombed the airport. So hauling rubble was his "business", how he put bread on the table. No time for luxuries then.

[Martin Jonas]

Here is one somewhat similar but no real cigar and I am not sure where dither of these came from:

That one looks Catania-made to me -- other than the body shape, all the appointments and workmanship looks much the same as the more conventinal Sicilian bowlbacks. Victor's family instrument has a similar body shape, but the rounded smooth edge of the soundboard looks pretty distinctive, and different. I was thinking more German, but no real supporting evidence, just gut feeling.

Martin

[vkioulaphides]

And yet, Italy isn't out of the question; the family documents open a certain window for speculation: on December 27th, 1911, my great-grandfather obtained a boarding pass from the Prefecture of Syracuse in Italy to embark on his last voyage to Tripoli, Libya. (Italy was a significant colonial power at that time and had several outlets in North Africa.) That was the last we hear from him in vivo...

So it is not entirely implausible that he may have picked up that odd-shaped instrument from among the many that must have been floating about in l' Italia meridionale at that time, as a souvenir of his passing through Sicily. It would be typical behavior of an itinerant merchant, in character with the various and sundry Orientalia we have inherited from his journeys across the Far East.

I am always hopeful for leads. After all, mandolins are nifty and portable things. Anyone who lugged, for example, a heavyweight porcelain and cast iron stove from the depths of China all the way back to Greece must have been a highly eclectic shopper. That is ten time-zones, and probably by land, traversing Irkutsk, the "belly-button of Siberia" and much, much else.

[jefflester]

If Bo Diddley had played mandolin....

[vic-victor]

It is unlikely that strange mandolin was acquired in Russia, though anything possible. I have a few old Russian dealers' catalogues and none list mandolins of this type. Having said that I came across several early Gibsons in Russia that made into Russia before the Russian revolution. No dealers were selling them, as far as I know, at the time, but it is likely that wealthy people travelled to USA and beyond and were probably amused by the look of Gibsons and bought them and brought them back to Russia as a curiosity.

[vkioulaphides]

It is unlikely that strange mandolin was acquired in Russia, though anything possible. I have a few old Russian dealers' catalogues and none list mandolins of this type. Having said that I came across several early Gibsons in Russia that made into Russia before the Russian revolution. No dealers were selling them, as far as I know, at the time, but it is likely that wealthy people travelled to USA and beyond and were probably amused by the look of Gibsons and bought them and brought them back to Russia as a curiosity.

As you say, anything is possible. On my great-grandmother's dowry document, her mother enumerates all the articles that were given to young Maria for her to start her own household. If we manage to find any mention of the mandolin on that document, then that's our answer! Rather curiously, Madame Marcia Lyudovikovich Jeunmar (my great-grandmother's mother) makes it a point to turn the spotlight on herself while writing her daughter's dowry document, saying that she was an American citizen! I don't know of course how true that is. Her surname is certainly French; in fact the Jeunmar family just started a new, Moscow-based (I think) business in 2009, making and selling rather fashionable, youth-oriented haberdashery, T-shirts, hats, bags, and the like.

Unfortunately my cousin and I, who are researching this out of our own curiosity, know only a few words in Russian and can only read them in print, not in curly manuscript. The dowry document is also blurred at times due to material decay so it would be hard even for a native speaker of Russian to make out all what's written. I have no way of knowing whether Mme Jeunmar had ever been to the US or whether her American citizenship (IF true) was by birth, from her parents; but all that would just be fanciful speculation. The only thing certain is that the earliest population of Vladivostok went there from someplace else. Now, if someone could find a Gibson mandolin of that shape, then yes, that would corroborate the idea that this was one of those.

To close with an amusing, if mando-unrelated trivium: one of the documents we found is a very verbose and obsequious plea by my great-grandfather to the Tsar himself (!), penned in beautiful calligraphy, asking for 1000 bottles of red wine as "seed capital" in order to get his business started, plus a few changes of warm clothes as my forebears had heard that it got awfully cold where they were headed. You can't make up stuff like that...

Cheers,

Victor

[vic-victor]

I can assist with a curly Russian if you like. A letter to Tsar is certainly an interesting historical document. Mentioning your predecessor as an American citizen makes it ever more intriguing. It reminded me my own research for my wife's uncle family history, his granfather was an Austrian prisoner of WWI settling in Russia only to find his death in Stalin's Gulag in the 1930's. He had a brother who tried to contact the family in Russia in the 1980's and I finally found the info on that brother, as being an Australian citizen. I thought it was a typo, as Austrian can easily make into Australian (No kangaroos in Austria is a popular sticker there), but no, he has left Vienna in 1939 to settle in Australia. And I live in Australia so that was quite a surprise to me. So, yes... anything possible.

[vkioulaphides]

I can assist with a curly Russian if you like. A letter to Tsar is certainly an interesting historical document. Mentioning your predecessor as an American citizen makes it ever more intriguing. It reminded me my own research for my wife's uncle family history, his granfather was an Austrian prisoner of WWI settling in Russia only to find his death in Stalin's Gulag in the 1930's. He had a brother who tried to contact the family in Russia in the 1980's and I finally found the info on that brother, as being an Australian citizen. I thought it was a typo, as Austrian can easily make into Australian (No kangaroos in Austria is a popular sticker there), but no, he has left Vienna in 1939 to settle in Australia. And I live in Australia so that was quite a surprise to me. So, yes... anything possible.

That is extremely generous of you; my cousin and I would be most grateful if you could assist us. If you would be kind enough to send me your email address via the Cafe's messenger, I will be happy to send you the document in question as an attachment. I naturally don't expect a literal, word-by-word translation, only a general idea of the letter's contents, any dates, places, persons mentioned, the gist of the matter.

I view this document mostly as a curiosity. As Peter the Great's mother used to preface her replies to his notoriously ungrammatical letters, "I read your words with tears and laughter." So I read my great-grandfather's petition. As you know, that particular monarchy had something metaphysical to it; people pleaded with the Tsar the same way they lit votive candles to St. Michael. But there is also something sad to it. Sure, you could write to the Emperor all you wanted but, if you actually expected an answer from the Winter Palace (or a postcard from Kolomenskoye ) you were stretching your imagination. My ancestors weren't Grand Dukes or Prince-This or Count-That. They were common merchants, running a bottling and warehousing company trading in vodka, cognac, and various other liquors. Their chance of getting a reply from the two-headed eagle crown was zero.

In any case, I leave that for a private conversation. I am near-absolutely certain that my great-grandfather made no mention of mandolins in his petition to Nicholas II.

[derbex]

The mandolin looks rather like the one on this auction site https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/a...2-a9150039d0eb -which they claim is German.

[vkioulaphides]

The mandolin looks rather like the one on this auction site https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/a...2-a9150039d0eb -which they claim is German.

BINGO! I think you're right, this must be the type of mandolin it was. Too bad it never came down to my times... The last document I just deciphered only mentions a Japanese bayonet that I did see hanging from the outside wall of a little kiosk my ancestors had in the garden. I hasten to add that the customary use of said instrument of war was to scale fish as my grandfather was an avid fisherman.

Cheers, and thanks for the clue.

Victor