A RUSSIAN FAMILY

The two-hundred-year history of one of the great families that helped create the Europe of finance, politics and
culture. This book gives the Gunzburgs, for the first time, their rightful (first) place alongside the other great Jewish families – including the Ephrussis, Camondos, Warburgs and Rothschilds.

Through their business enterprises, their philanthropic activities, their patronage and their political engagement, the Gunzburgs played a leading role in Europe in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century.

Thanks to unpublished documentation, this book finally retraces the history of those who are considered the Russian Rothschilds. By combining an intimate approach and historical perspective, Lorraine de Meaux saves some fascinating characters from oblivion: a rabbi, a banker, the owner of gold mines, an accomplished hunter, an oriental scholar, an adventurer, a painter, an impresario of the Ballets Russes, an actor in Hollywood, a hero of the Resistance

Each generation in its own way writes a new chapter of this enthralling Russian-French saga. As of the Second Empire, the Gunzburgs chose France as their second homeland, as evidenced by the sumptuous Gunzburg mansion on the Place de l'Etoile in Paris. While fortune often smiled upon the Gunzburgs, they could not escape the misfortunes of their time, enduring bankruptcy, pogroms and anti-Semitism. From the palaces of St. Petersburg to the tragic hours of the 1917 Revolution and the Second World War, their successes and challenges weave together the material for a history that is as turbulent as it is moving. This resurrection of a vanished world conjures up the most brilliant personages of an era undergoing a full metamorphosis: Grand Dukes and Talmudists of the shtetl, painters (Bonnat, Chagall) politicians (Fould, Witte), writers and artists (Turgenev, Massenet, Diaghilev).

With a doctorate in history, Lorraine de Meaux is a specialist on Russia. Her books include La Russie et la tentation de l'Orient (Russia and the Temptation of the Orient, Fayard, 2010) ; as editor, Saint-Pétersbourg,
Histoire Promenades Anthologie Dictionnaire, (Saint-Petersburg, history, walks, anthology, dictionary, Robert Laffont, “Bouquins”, 2003) ; Intelligentsia. Archives inédites du XXe siècle, (Intelligentsia, unpublished 20th
century archives, Beaux-Arts Editions, 2012) with Véronique Jobert ; and recently, with Patrice Gueniffey, Les couples illustres de l'histoire de France (Illustrious Couples in French History, Perrin-Figaro Histoire, 2017).