Exile On Bellevue Hill

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aving lived in Delgany from the beginning of the 1950s to his death in 1980, Count Michael Kutuzov-Tolstoy is a man whose incredible life story we’ve tackled before.

Namely, with Delgany’s Shay Clear, back in 2016, everyone’s favourite loco historial having told us all about Leo Tolstoy’s nephew.

Only, eh, he isn’t actually related to the War And Peace author, something we later discovered through the Russian-born, Greystones-based Anna Bykova, and her 2018 talk, Count Michael Tolstoy: Myths, Suspicions And Exile, for the groovy fogeys at Greystones Archaelogical & Historical Society.

Being the very clever researcher that she is, Anna also wrote up her talk for the GAHS’ own website, and, be the jiggers, it’s thorough. And detailed. And truly fascinating.

So, feet up and teeth out for a crackin’ good read that has enough twists and turns, murders and moles, and bloody scrapes and great escapes to fill, well, a great Russian novel.

Take it away, Anna…

If you go in through the main gates of Christ Church in Delgany, Co. Wicklow, and follow right to the very back wall, you’ll find there a double-grave with a very unusual for this place Russian Orthodox cross on. On the tablet you can read:

MYRIAM

Countess Koutouzoff-Tolstoy
née Comtes de Villers-Waroux
1906 – 1971

also

Count Michael Koutouzow-Tolstoy
1896 – 1980

Many locals remember Michael Tolstoy as a real gentleman and remember his language school at Easton house. Just a few of them know the full story.

Full name of Michael Tolstoy was Michael Pavlovitch Golenishchev-Koutouzoff-Tolstoy. He was a descendant of a famous Russian Field marshal Michael Koutouzoff, who defeated Napoleon in Russia, but not a grandson of the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, as you could think.

His family didn’t have a title, but family members were called counts and countesses often. It was a common mistake with this noble and famous family related to many great Russian dynasties.

Michael Tolstoy, born 21 October 1896 in Tzarskoe selo (a municipal town Pushkin, part of Saint-Petersburg now), was the only son of Pavel Golenishchev-Koutouzoff-Tolstoy (1869-1909) and Ekaterina Sheremetiev (1864-1942). Before marriage, Ekaterina had been for three years a maid of honour to Maria Feodorovna, the widow of Emperor Alexander III. His father was a good brave soldier, but a bad husband.

Michael’s mother decided to leave her husband and went to Paris in 1901, when Michael was around 4 or 5 years old. In 1902, the marriage was dissolved. His father died in 1909, having started that year with the rank of colonel, and having served in the General Staff in Saint-Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire. He had medals and the gold weapon for courage.

On 4 March 1907, when Michael was 9, his mother remarried. Her second husband, Baron Ludwig Karlovich von Knorring (1859-1930), was a big landowner in the Baltic Provinces of the Russian Empire and a Russian diplomat. Later he served as the Russian minister in Darmstadt and equerry to the Emperor. His stepfather was a major influence on Michael Tolstoy growing up. The family moved to Germany where Ludwig von Knorring had a villa in Baden-Baden, and in 1910-1911, the baron was nominated Russian Minister to Hesse and Saxe-Coburg. It was an important post, as the Romanovs liked to visit this small Grand-Duchy. During one of the visits, young Michael Tolstoy was presented to his Tsar and to the Kaiser. He described it in his memoirs; “Poor Nicholas II gave me a very kindly smile, which, for no explainable reason, made me feel terribly shy. The Kaiser took the bunch of us in at a glance and said curtly, ‘Ought to make good officers those boys’. Both events took about 20 seconds each…”.

Michael spent four years, 1911-1914, in a boarding school in Birkenruh in Livonia (now Latvia), but when the Great War broke out in 1914, his relatives decided to move him to a Russian school. Unfortunately, despite being the son of top Russian aristocrats, had very poor Russian. He had to have intensive private lessons to pass his living certificate, and on September 1915, was admitted to the Imperial Alexander Lyceum in Saint-Petersburg, the best Russian university educating sons of the nobility who were being groomed to occupy posts in the Imperial service. He spent just 9 months there, and often cited these as the most valuable months of his life.

He joined the army in June 1916, entering the Horse Guards as a private in a special rank as volunteer, which was common for young gentlemen of his origin to serve on some preferential terms and be promoted to officers fast. He spent 6 months at the front, then 6 months at the military academy, Corps des Pages, in Saint-Petersburg.

But in Russia in 1917, it was very dangerous for a young officer to be in a big city, and Michael was sent to Pavlovka, and the Wolkonsky Estate in the Tambov region at the centre of the European Russia. He was engaged to Princess Marie Wolkonsky there, but soon the couple had to leave Pavlovka as the estate, the lands and the house were nationalised. It was a time of chaos and anarchy around, but Marie Wolkonsky and Michael Tolstoy still found time to get married on February 4th, 1918. The following month, the Red Committee of Pavlovka invited Marie Wolkonsky with her husband to return, the couple receiving a small house (not the manor), two cows, two horses and several peacocks from the park. It’s interesting that peasants living around Pavlovka at this time often asked Marie to be a godmother to their children and she didn’t refuse. Life for the first few months was finally quiet, but then, in July 1918, some communists arrived to set up a tribunal, and promptly condemned Michael to death as an ‘enemy of the people’. The night before Michael was due to be executed, an old coachman saved him and Marie,by making the guards drunk, and then helping the couple to leave the house. From there, he took them by cart to a distant railway station, where they made good their escape.

Their plan was to get out of Russia, Michael having decided to apply to the German Ambassador in Moscow, Count Mirbach, who was a friend of his stepfather, Baron von Knorring. But destiny was not kind to Michael, and he found himself in front of the German Embassy at the moment of Count Mirbach assassination. He was arrested and accused of the murder, leading Michael swiftly and cruelly to the second time in his life that he was due for execution, but, this time, thanks to his knowledge of German, he was able to clear his name.

Shortly after, the couple managed to move to Petrograd (formerly Saint-Petersburg), to Michael’s grandmother, Sheremetev. Luckily, Michael met on a street one of his friends from Birkenruh, who helped people from the Baltic states to be returned to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the three having become independent states in 1918. This friend put Michael and Marie’s names on the list for the Balts leaving Russia. So, in August 1918, the Tolstoys left Russia forever, in a cattle truck, sitting on their own luggage.

After stops in deferent countries, and some risky and unpleasant adventures, Michael and Marie arrived in Paris and his grandmother, who still had a house there. His paternal grandmother was Countess Catherine d’Andrini (1848-1937), a great heiress, a great beauty and one of friends of Empress Eugenie. Princess Cathrine Radziwill wrote of her, ‘Her Madonna-like features and straight profile were the despair of any painter… she was good, kind, amiable, sweet, and charming’ [2]. At the age of 18, she made a lovematch with a young secretary at the Russian Embassy in Paris, Pavel Golenischcev-Koutouzoff-Tolstoy (1839-1914), Michael’s grandfather. Her husband had a good career; he was a chamberlain at the Russian Court, and held various court positions for 50 years, ending his years as Great Master of the Hounds.

About the days in Paris, Michael’s aunt Mary Frothingham Koutouzoff-Tolstoy (1884-1976) – who was a widow of Michael’s uncle Alexander – wrote, “I felt it made the house quite cheerful to have some young people there, but it was a long time, following their harrowing experiences, before they once more learned to smile’. Michael obtained a position in the Russian Military Bureau, and he and his wife made some extra money by playing in the cinema. But the pay was inadequate for their needs. All the Tolstoy funds that were deposited in the St.Petersburg banks were nationalised by the Soviets.

In 1920, Michael and Marie went to Baden-Baden, to Michael’s mother and stepfather. Michael had some income there as a go-between for the aristocracy and antique dealers. In 1924, the couple moved to Belgium, as Michael received a good position in Brussels. Their lives became very drab and boring at this point, and Marie began to have some serious problems with her health. She died on 10 December 1929, leaving behind Michael and their 2-year-old son, Hilarion. Soon, another family tragedy. On December 28th, 1930, his stepfather died in Vevey, Switzerland, where Michael’s parents had moved after selling their villa in Baden-Baden.

On July 14th, 1933, in Brussels, Michael married Jeanne Francoise Marie Josephine du Roy de Blicquy (1898-1985), a daughter of Edouard du Roy de Blicquy and his wife, Elizabeth née Barones Simonis. Not long after, Jeanne returned to her parents, with Michael avoiding any mention later about this marriage. To the point that, many of his friends didn’t even know about it.

Just before World War 2, Michael Tolstoy moved to the Baltic, where, in 1939 he was granted a divorce from Jeanne in Riga, Latvia, and then promptly married again, this time with Marie Louise (Myriam) de Villers d’Awans de Waroux, from Belgian nobility. The newlyweds didn’t have money though – even the wedding bands were brass curtain rings. Such economic woes saw the couple move soon after to Yugoslavia, as it was the cheapest country in Europe, and it seemed to be outside the war zone. Later they lived for some time in Transylvania, Romania, where Michael took on an array of jobs, including language teacher, chicken farm manager, and helping to decorate rooms and parks.

On July 12th, 1940, his only son, Hilarion, died in France in a car incident, and two years later, Michael’s mother died in Switzerland. The couple could not go to either funeral, as people were not allowed to travel for personal reasons in Hitler’s Europe. With the money Michael’s mother left him, the couple then moved to Budapest, Hungary.

Which is where the most interesting and most controversial part of Michael Tolstoy’s life started. At the beginning, the couple had an active social life in Budapest, but many people were either suspicious of them or simply hated them. About to be arrested by the Hungarian secret service, fortunately, someone had already advised them to disappear from Budapest, and spend some months laying low, far from the capital. Then in April 1944, they were invited to join the Swedish Red Cross, but the shine of this new position faded as Michael came to believe that this was more a secretary job than any a real help to the war effort. So, he decided to do something real and practical, visiting the nearest and biggest Prisoner Of War camp Veszkény with gifts for the Soviet inmates. Later, he organized an international hospital for wounded soldiers and wounded civilians, under the protection of the Swedish Red Cross, with a department for soviet soldiers too. In truth, Michael Tolstoy was probably the first and only person who cared about Soviet soldiers at that time. Plus, the nurses in the hospital were Jews, and this work helped them to hide from the Germans. Until the end of his life, Tolstoy was proud of his efforts with the Swedish Red Cross.

Still, with his hospital being at the edge of the city, it was the first-line of the Red Cross or the Swedish Legation that the Red Army came into contact with, and, after meeting with the chief of the Soviet Medical Headquarters, Michael Tolstoy was arrested by SMERSH (short for Smert Shpionam, meaning Death To Spies). After two weeks of questioning, examination and interrogation though, he was released.

Free again, Michael worked as a go-between for the Russian Kommandantura and all the citizens of allied or neutral countries, seeing to the latter’s repatriation, followed by a stint as an interpreter for Russian authorities. After the war, Michael and his wife, Myriam, stayed on in Budapest, working as language teachers for Russian military personnel. Michael Tolstoy wanted to be helpful, wanted to use his knowledge of language to help people during the war, mainly because he wanted to help his ex-fellow citizens. But the Soviets didn’t trust him, and didn’t like him. On the other side, there were rumours about him being a possible Soviet agent.

In January 1951, the Tolstoys were expelled from Hungary. Just before their leaving, Myriam was converted from the Roman Catholic to the Russian Orthodox Faith, and they first moved to France, then to Belgium, followed shortly after for the residence permission in Ireland, where Michael’s old Lyceum friend, Nikolay Couriss, was living and successfully running a Language school at Collon, Co.Louth.

Life in Ireland was initially very difficult. For many years, the couple were under close police surveillance, especially if they visited the continent or Britain. Secondly, already tired and drained, they had to work hard to make a living. They bought an old house with a big garden, Greenlawn, Collon, close to Nikolay Couriss, and the couple started market-gardening, selling their produce in the local markets. They sold homemade jams, chutneys, vegetables and flowers, Myriam being one of the first to introduce yogurt in Ireland. A further interest was the breeding of budgerigars, Myriam going on to win prizes in Dublin. Not everything worked out though – when the couple began giving language lessons though, the results were not encouraging. Interestingly, during this time, Michael gave a few broadcast talks on Radio Eireann, in a weekly program for women entitled Between Ourselves.

In the early days of 1959, Myriam’s mother died and left her some money, and it changed their lives completely. Myriam bought Easton House in Delgany, where, after some repairs, the couple started their language school. It was popular as the school, working as a guest house that offered English, French, German and Russian language lessons for extra. Students came from Germany, Belgium, France and the UK, but never from Ireland. All through the 1960s, they took an average of 50 students for the summer months. Myriam liked to teach young pupils; she was always better with the beginners, whilst Michael was with more advanced students.

They paid social visits to people of good standing in the country, and once again had an interesting social life. It was a happy time for the couple, with some of their students becoming their good friends.

On January 31st, 1971, Myriam died, aged 65, her funeral service being conducted by the famous Russian Orthodox archbishop, Anthony of Sourozh, three Roman Catholic priests, and a Church of Ireland rector. After Myriam’s passing, the school still operated, but the number of guests began to dwindle, and Michael knew the end was nigh.

Until his death, Michael Tolstoy was a Russian patriot, and was very proud of the successes of the Soviet Russia in science, cosmonautics, military activities, etc. He had some correspondence with the USSR.

He was a very charming person, fluent in four languages – Russian, English, French, and German – and he was known for impeccable manners. Michael Tolstoy died on September 5th, 1980, aged 85 years. His death meant that there would be no more people with the surname Golenishchev-Koutouzoff-Tolstoy.

He left behind a number of antiques and items associated with the Old Russia. These were sold on auction in 1981, with all the money raised being inherited by Kitty Tenanty, their housekeeper, who was with the family since their first years in Collon, and was very devoted to the family. She died in Greystones in 2008. Michael and Myriam Tolstoy’s memoirs were published in English and German.

After his death, the reputation of Michael Tolstoy was ruined. In the autobiography of Pavel Sudoplatov, a top-rank officer of the Soviet intelligence services, Michael Tolstoy was called a long-term Soviet agent, supplying reports about the Swedish Legation in Budapest, especially about Raoul Wallenberg – who according to Michael’s reports ‘was collaborating with German intelligence’ and was playing a double game’ [4]. Another Russian author, Lev Bezymenskii, in his book Budapeshtskii Messiya (Budapest Messiah, Raoul Wallenberg), published in 2001 in Russian, was sure that it was Kutuzov-Tolstoy who had shopped Raoul Wallenberg to the Russians [5]. Also in 2011, there was a documentary Solo for Solitary Owls. Raul Wallenberg, in which Igor Prelin (a historian of security services, and a KGB colonel in the reserve) asserts openly that Tolstoy was an agent, and they quote from his reports [6]. The same convictions you can find in a book of Jangfeldt Bengt, a Swedish author and researcher, The Hero of Budapest, published in English in 2013. The answer should be in the KGB archives. We know that they have a file of Michael Tolstoy, but it’s still top secret, with none of these researchers ever having seen it.

You can check out Anna’s original article on the GAHS website right about here, a site full of wonderful trips through our collective memory lane. You can also check out the Count’s mate, John Connolly, here.