I picked up The Black Russian by Vladimir Alexandrov in a charity shop in Sheffield at the end of last year. I was attracted by the fact that it is a biography of a man born to parents who had been slaves in America who became caught up in the Russian Revolution of 2017 – it seemed like a mix of very different worlds. The book that I purchased, for a very cheap price, is a hardback edition with a dustcover and it is in good condition.
Frederick Thomas left the Southern states of America to travel to New York at the end of the nineteenth century because of the legal discrimination against black people. He worked as an attendant on railroad cars, a waiter and later a valet. In that last role he travelled to Europe with his employer and settled in Paris where he eventually found a role managing night clubs. He found Europe much more accepting of his colour and he was able to be successful. Eventually he moved to Moscow where he became rich and successful. He became a Russian citizen and renounced his American identity.
Unfortunately for him, in 1917 the Russian Revolution meant that capitalism was outlawed and Americans mistrusted. He, and some of his family, fled for their lives and travelled on the final boat out of Odessa, in terrible conditions, for Constantinople. Constantinople was governed by the Allies after WW1 and Thomas found himself in difficulties because the American authorities were in control and refused to accept his nationality – the records show a good deal of prejudice. Nevertheless Thomas made a success of himself in this new place and once again opened nightclubs. He was unable to leave the city because he had no passport but, as he claimed that he wasn’t stateless, he couldn’t find a new nationality. He couldn’t return to America or Russia and eventually his life in Constantinople became difficult.
You do read this true story with your heart sinking as Thomas met with one set back after another, usually, but not always, to do with his colour. His family life was a bit of a mess, he gained and then lost several fortunes, and his nationality was in question on occasion. On the other hand, however, he knew how to make people happy and he was said to be generous and kind to his employees. Regrettably, we don’t have many of his own words so this book is very reliant on public records and files which can be a little impersonal so we don’t know what Thomas thought and felt. It is obvious that the author has done a significant amount of research and this shows especially as he describes the various places that Thomas lived and the world events that he experienced.
I thought that this was an excellent biography which illuminated these times and the world in which Thomas lived very well. I shall shelve this book with similar biographies as I may want to read it again one day.
Anne Is Reading 