Ivan Erdeli

Ivan Georgievich Erdeli
General of Cavalry Erdeli
Commander–in–Chief of the North Kavkaz
In office July 1919 – April 25, 1920
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Office abolished
Personal details
Born	October 27, 1870 Erdelevka, Elisavetgrad Uezd, Kherson Guberniya, Russian Empire
Died	July 7, 1939 (aged 68) Paris, France
Resting place	Sainte–Geneviève–des–Bois Cemetery
Parent	Georgiy Erdeli (father)
Education	Nikolaevskoe Cavalry School
Awards	Gold Weapon "For Bravery" Order of Saint Vladimir Order of Saint Anna Order of Saint Stanislav Order of the Lion and the Sun
Military service
Allegiance	Russian Empire
Rank	General of Infantry
Battles/wars	World War I Civil War

Ivan Georgievich Erdeli (October 27, 1870, Kherson Guberniya – July 7, 1939, Paris, France) was a Russian military commander and General of Cavalry. A participant in World War I and the Civil War. A figure of the White Movement in South of Rossiya. Participant in the First Kuban Campaign. One of the founders of the Volunteer Army.

Biography

Origin

Of the hereditary nobility of Kherson Guberniya. His ancestors were Hungarian nobles who converted to Orthodoxy and settled in Rossiya in the 18th century. His great–grandfather served in the armies of Pyotr Rumyantsev and Aleksandr Suvorov.

He was born on October 27, 1870, in the village of Erdelevka (Elisavetgrad Uezd, Kherson Guberniya). His father was Egor (Georgiy) Yakovlevich (1807–1876), the Provincial Leader of the Nobility of Kherson Guberniya from 1871 to 1876. His mother was Leonida Nikanorovna, née Tulubeva (1843–1914).

There were eight children in the family. The elder brother was Yakov Egorovich – Governor of Minsk and a member of the State Council. His nephew (the son of his older sister, Vera Erdeli) was the writer Yuriy Slyozkin; her grandson was Lev Slyozkin, a historian specializing in American studies, and her great–grandson is the ethnographer Yuriy Slyozkin. Another older sister was Leonida Pishchevich (1868–1941). Her husband was Semyon Pishchevich.

Education

Graduated from:

• Nikolaevskiy Cadet Corps (1887)
• Nikolaevskoe Cavalry School (1890)
• Nikolaevskaya General Staff Academy (1897)

Cavalryman and General Staff Officer

He graduated from the school in 1890 and was commissioned into His Majesty's Life Guards Hussar Regiment. From November 1899, he served as a staff officer for special assignments at the Headquarters of the Kavkaz Military District. From September 12, 1900 – Senior Adjutant to the Staff of the Inspector General of Cavalry, Grand Duke Nikolay Nikolaevich. From June 22, 1905, he served as Senior Clerk in the Chancellery of the Council of State Defense, which was headed by Grand Duke Nikolay Nikolaevich. From June 9, 1907, he was commander of the 8th Astrakhan Dragoon Regiment; from May 15, 1910, a Major General and commander of the Life Guards Dragoon Regiment. From November 6, 1912, Quartermaster General of the Staff of the Guard Troops and the Peterburg Military District (under Commander Grand Duke Nikolay Nikolaevich).

World War I

From 19 July 1914 Erdeli was quartermaster general of the 6th Army, and from 9 August 1914 of the 9th Army. On 18 October 1914 he took command of the 14th Cavalry Division, and on 13 May 1915 of the 2nd Guards Cavalry Division. He was awarded the Gold Sword for Bravery in 1915 and promoted to lieutenant general in May 1916. From 23 November 1916 he commanded the 64th Infantry Division, and from 6 April 1917 the 18th Army Corps.

In June–July 1917 he commanded the 11th Army and led it during the June Offensive. Initially his troops broke through the Austro-Hungarian front and achieved some success at the Battle of Zborov. However, when a German force struck the army's positions in July, its units, demoralised by anti-war agitation, began a disorderly retreat.

On 18 June 1917 he was promoted to General of the Infantry. From 12 July 1917 he commanded the Special Army. He actively supported General Lavr Kornilov during the Kornilov affair, after which he was removed from command, arrested and imprisoned at Bykhov together with Kornilov and other generals.

Russian Civil War

In November 1917, together with the other imprisoned generals, Erdeli escaped to the Don, where he took part in forming the Volunteer Army from its earliest days. He participated in the First Kuban (Ice) March. From January to March 1918 he was the Volunteer Army's representative to the Kuban regional government. In March–April 1918 he commanded a separate cavalry brigade of the Volunteer Army and distinguished himself in the fighting near Yekaterinodar. From May to late August 1918 he commanded the 1st Cavalry Division and took part in the Second Kuban campaign.

In October 1918 he was sent to Salonika to negotiate arms supplies and the participation of British and French troops in the fight against the Bolsheviks.

In January 1919 he was sent to Transcaucasia to establish contact with representatives of the British command. From April 1919 he deputised for General Vladimir Lyakhov as chief commander and commander of the troops of the Terek-Dagestan Territory. From July 1919 he was chief commander and commander of the troops of the North Caucasus. On 25 April 1920 he was transferred to the officers' reserve of the Armed Forces of South Russia. He returned to Crimea aboard the ship Rus on 24 August 1920.

Emigration

In 1920 Erdeli emigrated to France, where he worked as a piano accompanist and a driver. He was active in the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS) and sat on the board of the Mutual Aid Society of Former Cadets of the Nikolaevsky Cavalry School. From 21 March 1930 to 29 June 1934 he chaired the Union of Officers – Veterans of the Great War. On 29 June 1934 he became head of the 1st Department of ROVS, which united its members in France, and chairman of the French branch of the Union of Participants of the First Kuban March, but he soon resigned these posts. On 5 October 1937 he was appointed chairman of the Special Commission investigating the case of Major General Nikolai Skoblin, an NKVD agent. The commission worked until the end of February 1938 and on 1 March 1938 published its findings, which confirmed Skoblin's treason.

Erdeli died suddenly in Paris on 7 July 1939 (Volkov gives the date of death as 30 July). He was buried at the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery.

Honours and awards

• Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd class (1900)
• Order of St. Anna, 3rd class (1903)
• Order of St. Anna, 2nd class (1905)
• Order of St. Vladimir, 4th class (1909)
• Order of St. Vladimir, 3rd class (1913)
• Order of St. Stanislaus, 1st class with swords (1915)
• Gold Sword for Bravery (Imperial order of 9 March 1915)
• Order of St. Anna, 1st class with swords (1915)
• Order of St. Vladimir, 2nd class with swords (1916)
• Badge of the First Kuban (Ice) March

Foreign:

• Persian Order of the Lion and the Sun, 2nd class (1906)

Family

In 1891 Erdeli married Maria Aleksandrovna Kuzminskaya (1869–1923), daughter of senator Alexander Mikhaylovich Kuzminsky and niece of Sophia Tolstaya, the wife of Leo Tolstoy. They divorced in 1919. His second wife was Baroness Stackelberg.

Children:

• Ivan (1892–1926, Marseille). Graduated from the Imperial School of Jurisprudence (1913); served in World War I with the Life Guards 4th Rifle Regiment. Emigrated to France.
• Maria (1896–1961, Melbourne). First married Fyodor Ivanovich Kramarev (1877–1945), a nobleman of Kherson Governorate; secondly married Pyotr Petrovich Levonenko (1899–1980). Her son, Dmitry Fyodorovich Kramarev (1922–2007, Melbourne), attended the Russian Cadet Corps in Yugoslavia; his descendants live in Australia.
• Tatiana (died in childhood).
• Georgy (1901–1938). Educated at the Page Corps. In October 1920 he left Sevastopol for exile, first to Constantinople, then to Sarajevo. From 1922 he was a cadet of the Crimean Cadet Corps. He married Anastasia Mikhaylovna, née Kornyakova; they had two children.
• Alexander (1904–1955). In exile from 1920. Studied at the Russian Cadet Corps in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and at the Crimean Cadet Corps. In 1931 he graduated from the Higher School of Geology in Nancy. He married Nina Ivanovna, née Butlerova; their daughter Ksenia was born in 1932. Before World War II the family left Europe for South America.

In 1913 Erdeli met Maria Konstantinovna Sverbeyeva (Mara Olive). Their romance lasted for many years:

The inexpressible joy of holding in my hands the familiar sheets, the blue pencil, your handwriting, of seeing and feeling that your hand wrote these lines, that you wrote them, and wrote them to me…

— Letter from Erdeli to Sverbeyeva, 22 February 1919

Bibliography

• "Эрдели Иван Георгиевич". Большая российская энциклопедия (in Russian). Archived from the original on 5 October 2022.
• Zalessky, K. A. (2003). Кто был кто в Первой мировой войне [Who Was Who in World War I] (in Russian). Moscow: AST; Astrel.
• Nesterovich-Berg, M. A. (1931). В борьбе с большевиками: Воспоминания [In the Struggle against the Bolsheviks: Memoirs] (in Russian). Foreword by I. G. Erdeli. Paris. p. 227.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Volkov, S. V. (2002). Офицеры российской гвардии. Опыт мартиролога [Officers of the Russian Guard: An Attempt at a Martyrology] (in Russian). Moscow: Russkiy Put'. pp. 554–555. ISBN 5-85887-122-4.

External links

• "Эрдели Иван Георгиевич". Russian Army in the Great War (grwar.ru) (in Russian).
• Red Terror (in Russian) Archived 14 May 2007 at the Wayback Machine