After 95 years in exile, the daughter of a Tsarist-era army general has been granted Russian citizenship by President Vladimir Putin, before her 100th birthday on 15 December.
Irene de Dreier left Russia when she was just five. Her father, Vladimir von Dreier, was an imperial officer who fought for the White Army against the Bolsheviks during the Russian civil war, which broke out after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.
The family fled to Crimea, where the last stand of the Whites took place, and left the peninsula by ship in 1920. The Von Dreiers eventually settled in Paris where the former general opened a wine shop. Irene won second place in a 1936 Miss Russia beauty contest held in Paris among émigrés from the nobility. She was married three times – to a Frenchman, an Italian and an American – and has travelled widely, but always dreamed of returning to Russia.
De Dreier had appealed to Putin in recent weeks: “I want to meet the creator not as a foreigner but as a real citizen of Russia, as a Russian in my heart and soul.”
The Russian television station NTV featured an appeal by De Dreier, speaking in both English and Russian, asking for Putin to return her citizenship. Apparently in sound mind and good humour, and drinking a glass of champagne, the 99-year-old said she had always felt Russian but since her mother died did not have anyone left to speak the language with. If her health allows, she wants to visit Russia before she dies.
During the Soviet period, the White Army were portrayed as evil villains in literature and cinema, but in recent years there has been a different approach. Putin has promoted a patriotic interpretation of all elements of Russian history, encouraging Russians to take pride both in the achievements of the Soviet state but also respect members of the White Army who fought against its creation.
A 2008 film, the Admiral, told a fictionalised story about Admiral Kolchak, one of the leading White commanders. Like the Red Army forces, the Whites engaged in terror as a tactic. But the film’s director, Andrei Kravchuk, said at the time that the White officers were an example to modern Russians: “These people have what we are severely lacking today – a sense of duty, honour, morals and an ability to remain dignified and composed in any circumstances.”
Putin approved De Dreier’s request, according to a decree published on the Russian government’s website on Monday.
