Georg von Charasoff 19
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disciplinary problems with the three elder children. According to Husmann,
Charasoff had left him some 6,000 Swiss Francs in February 1915, and
approximately the same amount of money he had obtained from disbanding the
Charasoff apartment (that is, from the sale of furniture, houseware, carpets and so
on), and from the liquidation of Charasoff’s share in his private school. But over and
above this sum, Dr Husmann declared to have spent out of his own pocket, from 1915
to 1919, ‘some 12.000 to 15.000 Swiss Francs’
31
on the Charasoff children, ‘apart
from much time and distress. My benevolence has been shamelessly exploited’
(Vormundschaftsakten ‘Kinder Charasoff’, Stadtarchiv Zurich).
In early 1919 the municipality of Zurich assumed the guardianship of the four
Charasoff children, in the form of its representative Dr Häberli (Amtsvormund).
From spring 1919 to spring 1920, there exists an extensive documentation with
regard to Dr Häberli’s activities concerning the Charasoff children (see
Vormundschaftsakten ‘Kinder Charasoff’ and Fremdenpolizeidossier ‘Kinder
Charasoff’, Stadtarchiv Zurich), which can be briefly summed up as follows. By
spring 1919, Charasoff’s son Arthur, then 17 years old, regularly bunked school in
order to hang out with his Russian friends in Zurich; he stayed up late and strolled
through Zurich’s nightlife, incurred debts, and was arrested by the police more than
once. There were plans of confining him to a workhouse for boys in the Swiss
countryside, but he left Zurich in May 1919 without giving notice to anybody with
one of the ‘Russian trains’ (Russenzüge), which regularly departed from Zurich in
those years. After a journey of several weeks he arrived in Tbilisi, briefly stayed with
his father, and then moved on to Batum, where he worked for the British army.
Lily von Charasoff, then 15 years old, also failed to attend classes regularly in
the private school for girls in which she had been placed by her father. She was
apparently fascinated by the theatre, the ballet and the opera, moved in artistic and
literary circles, and also had first love affairs. She informed Dr Häberli that she
intended to give up high school attendance in order to become an actress, and she
actually took acting lessons. In spring and summer 1919 Lily obtained regular
financial support from Edith Rockefeller-McCormick, the mother of her
schoolmate and close girlfriend Muriel McCormick.
32
Dr Häberli noted in a memo
note that Mrs Rockefeller-McCormick, then one of the richest women in the world,
was even prepared to employ her as a lady’s companion and secretary, but Lily
refused this offer and declared that she was determined to travel to Tbilisi in order
to search for her father.
Alexander von Charasoff had successfully finished high school in 1918 and then
had become a student of chemistry at the University of Zurich. However, after a
few months he had largely given up studying and spent his time by enjoying the
Zurich nightlife and incurring debts. Only the youngest child, Sergius, then eight
years old, caused no disciplinary problems.
Since the municipality of Zurich was keen to get rid of the financial obligations
related to the three remaining children, Dr Häberli tried to raise money for their
‘home transport’. From various sources, including donations from Mrs McCormick
and from a further school friend or teacher of Lily’s by the name of Maria Wyss, a
sufficient amount was finally available for covering Lily’s travel costs. She left
Zurich on 21 October 1919 and travelled by train and ship via Naples and
Constantinople to Tbilisi, where she arrived some six weeks later. Immediately
upon her arrival she wrote a letter to Dr Häberli, and another one to her step-brother
Alexander, in which she asked him forcefully not to embark on the journey to
Tbilisi, and rather to make every possible effort to be allowed to stay on in Zurich.
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20
History of Economics Review
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She informed Alexander about the difficult living conditions in Tbilisi, where their
father now earned his living as a professor at the Polytechnical University: ‘We
don’t have any money, although we still own a factory, but this is out of use and
earns us no money. And to sell it now is not the right time’. In a letter to Dr Häberli
Lily noted that her father, with whom she was living together in a single, unheated
room, ‘has lost all his property, which is now in the hands of the Russian
government’. Since life was so difficult in Tbilisi, her plan was to return to Zurich
as soon as possible, together with her father:
We plan to come to Switzerland in spring, and if Alexander could stay on
until then, this would be a great relief. Here it would be very difficult for him,
and his future would be rather bleak, the more so, because he cannot speak
the language. (Lily Charasoff to Dr Häberli, 8 December 1919;
Vormundschaftsakten ‘Kinder Charasoff’, Stadtarchiv Zürich)
However, when Lily’s two letters arrived in Zurich on 27 December 1919,
Alexander had already embarked on the ‘home transport’ to Tbilisi, together with
his younger brother. They had left Zurich on 9 December 1919.
In June 1920 Lily again informed Dr Häberli about her firm intention to return
to Zurich, together with her father and her youngest brother. She had meanwhile
opened a sewing room and hoped to earn enough money within the next fifteen
months to make a return trip possible:
Life is very difficult here. There is an enormous inflation and much suffering.
My father is very weak. My brother Arthur has got an excellent job in Baku.
Bubi [that is, Sergius] lives with Papa and is doing well on the whole.
(Vormundschaftsakten ‘Kinder Charasoff’, Stadtarchiv Zürich)
Neither Georg von Charasoff nor his children ever returned to Zurich.
11 Charasoff’s Articles in Die Aktion and Der Gegner
In 1918, five essays by Georg Charasoff appeared in the literary-political journal
Die Aktion (Charasoff 1918a-e). Scrutiny shows that these articles are but slightly
revised versions of five chapters from Charasoff’s second book, Das System des
Marxismus, of 1910. The texts were probably reprinted without the author’s (and
the publisher’s) consent: Charasoff lived in Tbilisi from 1915 and the Hans Bondy
Verlag had been liquidated already in 1913. In 1920, four chapters of Charasoff’s
1909 book, including the final polemical chapter, were published in Die Aktion, in
three instalments and under the new heading ‘Eine Darstellung der Lehre von Karl
Marx’ (An Exposition of Karl Marx’s Theory) (Charasoff 1920).
Die Aktion was a literary-political journal, edited by Franz Pfemfert, which
appeared from 1911 to 1932. It was instrumental for the breakthrough of
expressionism in Germany (see Raabe 1961, 1964). In the early phase of the
expressionist movement, that is, from roughly 1911 to 1914, Die Aktion was the
main outlet, together with Herwarth Walden’s Der Sturm, for the new literary and
artistic movement. Very early on, Pfemfert published the works of young writers
and poets that would later become world famous, including Gottfried Benn, Max
Brod, André Gide, Georg Heym, Else Lasker-Schüler, Heinrich Mann, Frank
Wedekind, Franz Werfel and Carl Zuckmayer. Die Aktion also published
illustrations by artists like Lyonel Feininger, George Grosz, Franz Marc, Henri
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