UDC

94(47)084.3

Authors

Karelin Vladimir Anatolyevich
Murmansk Institute of Economics – Branch of Saint-Petersburg Academic University
7 Khalatina St., Murmansk, 183031, Russian Federation;
e-mail: karelin_vladimir@mail.ru
Nielsen Jens Petter
Institute of History and Religious Studies,
UiT The Arctic University of Norway
NO-9037, Tromsø, Norway;
e-mail: jens.petter.nielsen@uit.no
Repnevsky Andrey Viktorovich
Institute of Social, Humanitarian and Political Sciences,
Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov
2 prosp. Lomonosova, Arkhangelsk, 163002, Russian Federation;
e-mail: a.repnevskiy@narfu.ru

Abstract

This article is devoted to one of the obscure aspects of the White diplomatic activity in Scandinavia during the final period of the Russian Civil War. It is supplemented with an appendix of previously unpublished archival documents, discovered by the authors in the Department of Manuscripts (Special Reading Room) at the National Library of Norway, Oslo. The authors focus on the history of Russia’s gold stocks, which due to the course of events happened to appear in Sweden and which in 1921 were transferred to banks in the USA. The authors pay attention to the fact that this transaction was carried through by an experienced and energetic Russian diplomat K.N. Gulkevich (1865–1935) and a Norwegian professor of Slavic languages Olaf Broch (1867–1961). Konstantin Gulkevich played a key role in this financial transaction. He had held the position as a Russian envoy in Christiania (present-day Oslo) from February 1916 to May 1917. During this period, Gulkevich set himself the aim of promoting partnership and rapprochement between Russia and Norway and made great efforts to tune Norwegian public opinion in favour of Russia. Olaf Broch – a Russophile, Slavic philologist, interpreter and a public man – helped Gulkevich to establish contacts with political, business and intellectual elites in Norway. Gulkevich was appointed Russian envoy to Sweden after the February Revolution by Pavel Milyukov, the first Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government. After the October Revolution, Gulkevich refused to recognize the new Soviet government. During the Civil War in Russia, Gulkevich’s activity in Sweden aimed at supporting the White movement against the Bolsheviks. After the defeat of the White movement, the leaders of the White diplomacy in the West faced the prospects of legitimate claims by representatives of Soviet Russia as well as by Entente creditors of Tsarist Russia. Therefore, they made strenuous efforts to hide the Russian gold reserves.

Keywords

history of Civil War in the North and Northwest Russia, “White diplomats” in Norway and Sweden in 1921, Russian gold in Sweden, Konstantin Nikolaevich Gulkevich, Professor Olaf Broch

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