The forgiving love of Sophia Kolchak: the tragedy of the legendary admiral's wife

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Heroic fate Alexander Kolchak well known for the film "Admiral", released in 2008. The piercing love story of the admiral for Anna Timereva became a hymn to a light feeling, which, as you know, is stronger than death. At the same time, the fate of Kolchak's legal wife - Sophia - rarely arouses keen interest. But the life of this woman also became a feat, but her heroism was of a different kind. Without dropping her honor and dignity, without humiliating herself to quarrelsome accusations of treason, day after day she carried her cross of an outcast wife, giving all of herself to the upbringing of her son …

The character of Sofia Fedorovna from childhood was tempered by difficulties: she was left an orphan early, and, although she had a high birth, she did not shy away from work, earned a living teaching foreign languages that she knew perfectly. Her acquaintance with Kolchak happened at a ball in the Marine Assembly. After - the sailor went sailing for several years, and the faithful bride remained to wait for his return. The decision on the wedding had already been made, the lovers exchanged rare letters full of tenderness, anticipating the joy of their future family life. "Two months have passed since I left you, my infinitely dear …" - this is how Alexander began one of his letters to Sophia.

Fate decreed that the wedding of the young people took place only after the second expedition of Kolchak, in total they survived 4 long years of separation. The day after the wedding, Sophia released her already legal husband to the war - to Port Arthur. Years passed, meetings were rare, Sophia was mostly busy raising the children who were born. The first daughter, born in the first year of marriage, died in infancy, later Sophia gave birth to a son, Rostislav, and a daughter, Margarita. Despite all the hardships, Sophia did not lose heart, wrote letters to her husband, full of care and tenderness: she talked about the children, asked about the news at the exercises, worried about the possible start of the war.

The first trouble came to the life of the Kolchaks with the outbreak of the First World War. On the way to evacuation, Margarita dies from a cold, Sophia is left alone with her son. In search of support, she goes to her husband in Helsinki, where the Baltic Fleet is located at that time. There she learns about her husband's hobby - Anna Timereva. Already understanding everything, she at the same time does not lose her dignity, and continues to accompany her husband. First, they go to Sevastopol, where she develops active social activities, helps the soldiers. Soon she is left alone again: Alexander is invited to the United States, her son soon has to be sent home to Kamenets-Podolsk, where he (the son of a white officer) is not in danger. Sophia herself was forced to hide from the Bolsheviks, to live according to forged documents. Kolchak returned to Russia with Anna and in a letter asked Anna, protecting her son, to emigrate abroad. The fearless woman fulfilled all her husband's orders, she hardly made it to France and began to live there, earning money for her son's training in sewing and pawning the surviving valuables in pawnshops.

Sophia's efforts were not in vain: Rostislav grew up as a wonderful man, graduated from the Sorbonne, and served in the ranks of the French army during the Second World War. In memory of the white movement, Sofya Fedorovna, with her own money, erected a monument in France, on this mass grave is also the name of her lawful husband, to whom she remained devoted until the end of her life, and she herself was buried there after her death.

The story of the love triangle of Sophia, Anna and Alexander Kolchak became the basis for the film about Admiral Kolchak.