Conflict, War and Revolution: My Life, the memoir of Baroness
Alessandra Kozlowska (1892-1975), is a vivid retelling of her life
from childhood to the end of the Second World War. It begins with her
life of wealth and status in the Caucasus, where her father was in oil,
and ends with internment as an alien in rural Italy, in Ospedaletto. In
between she survived two revolutions in Russia and the subsequent civil
war, her travels in central Europe during World War One, her life in
Italy during the inter-war years, and her internment there, almost
terminated by German forces. It is the story of her struggle to keep her
family together through the huge and sometimes deadly changes of early
twentieth century Europe.
Alessandra Kozlowska was a formidable woman, quick witted, polylingual,
and full of kindness and compassion. Her story reads like a novel as she
moved in continental 'society' yet was also at the forefront of events
in Russia from where her family was forced to flee after a confrontation
with the Red Army, having given refuge to the president of the Duma. By
this time Alessandra was married to a Polish count, had had a narrow
escape as a Russian in Austria during World War I, and had lost touch
with her brother and sister in the White Army in Russia. The family was
partially united after the civil war, but fractured again with World War
II.
The history rolls unstoppably through Alessandra's story, yet her
character and background gave her the strength to endure things which
would have caused most people to despair. Conflict, War and Revolution:
My Life is a remarkable account of a woman in the twentieth century.
