Russian White Army, a group of 5 posters depicting commanders, [Rostov-on-Don, c. 1919]

[Russia] White Army

A group of five posters depicting commanders of the White Army. [South Russia, probably Rostov-on-Don: OSVAG, c. 1919-1920]

two posters approx. 815 x 605mm., and three posters approx. 640 x 405mm., the poster of Kolchak framed and glazed, poster of Kolchak laid down on cloth with a repaired tear (affecting one letter) and two small corner tears, poster of Denikin slightly frayed at head with tear at lower corner

A rare surviving collection of commemorative White Army posters, relating to the post-Revolutionary civil war of 1918-1920. The posters depict the army officers General Anton Ivanovich Denikin (with a quote of his dated 3 February 1919), Admiral Aleksandr Vasileevich Kolchak, General Aleksei Maksimovich Kaledin, General-Lieutenant Baron Petr Nikolaevich Vrangel, and General-Lieutenant Vladimir Zenonovich Mai-Maevskii. Most of these posters were destroyed by the Bolsheviks, but the present group was apparently brought home by a British officer attached to a White Army unit in Southern Russia.

General Petr Vrangel was a commander of Caucasus Volunteer Army in 1919, but was forced to resign in early 1920. General Denikin briefly took his place but was also removed from office and Vrangel was reinstated as commander of the White Army.

General Kaledin was a Cossack general and the poster commemorates his position as first elective Cossack leader (Ataman) of the Don Cossack Host, with his date of death 29 January 1918 (11 February in the Gregorian calendar; he committed suicide). Mai-Maevskii also had some successes at the start of the war but by 1920 he was removed from office and died shortly after either by suicide or heart failure. Admiral Kolchak was the head of state of "White" Russia from 1918 until he was executed by the Bolsheviks early in 1920.