Help in Identifying Russian Cavalry Regiment
Article about: Working on family genealogy, and hope someone can identify/confirm my Russian grandfather's cavalry regiment/uniform? It dates from no later than 1916 (he was sent to the US in 1916 to purch
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I like the photo with his hair HIGH & TIGHT. even back then they wore it that way.
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Assuming that the embroidery & buttons are white ( silver for officers), it looks like the 7th Belorusski Hussars Emperor Alexander I.
BobS
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I forgot tp mantion that the 7th Hussars in WWI were part of the 2nd Brigade,, along with the 11th Don Cossacks,7th Cavalry Division and served mainly on the Southwestern ( Galician) front
Pre-war, the regiment was stationed at Vladimir-Volinsk, part of the XIX Army Corps HQ at Brest - Litovsk.
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Don't check here often, almost gave up! This is very helpful, thanks, and tracks with what a curator at our local war museum recently offered: he posited that the uniform could be Hussar, and so into the Russian Hussar interwebs I went. Found a couple of badges that were close to the star and crown he is wearing, but not quite... Given his rank, I will go with silver for the badge. Back into the Hussar wormhole I go!
As for the chappie in black uniform and boots - he is my grandfather's "batman", and accompanied him to the US when my gramps was tasked to inspect/purchase ordnance (WRA Co, and American Powder Mills). He stayed in NYC while my grandfather headed to Canada.
Would be grateful for any (reliable) literary resources I could draw on for further research. Cheers and thanks!
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The badge in the photo definitely looks like the officer's version for the 7th Hussars. An orginal would be quite expensive, but you may find good copies on Ebay.
The problem with finding information on the Russian Army pre 1917 is that almost all books, and there have been many in the last 30 years, are printed in Russian only.
There are a few books on the Imperial Guard co-written in English, and the very valusble "The Russian Imperial Cavalry" by Gerard Gorokhoff.
Good luck with your research.
BobS
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After some effort my library was able to do an ILL acquisition on a couple of Russian Cavalry/Hussar-adjacent publications: “The Russian Imperial Cavalry in 1914” by Vladimir Emmanuel, and "Russian Hussar: A Story of the Imperial Cavalry 1911-1920",
V.S. Littauer. Both informative, and provided additional context/understanding of the workings of the Russian Cavalry/Hussars, in general, as well as placing the 7th within their OOM. Still on the search for the Gorokhoff book...
Additional research led me way, way down the rabbit hole, to a chap who specializes in Russian Military History (shout out to MarksRussianMilitaryHistorty.info), who was able to confirm the badge, as well as provide other useful tidbits, readings and recommendations. So, while I'll likely be "brick-walled" for awhile yet on my grandfather's actual story, I have enough to patch some of the smaller gaps.
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Very nice, clean & sharp - thanks. I only did a quick, basic edit (colourized) for posting purposes; my actual framed and family genealogy pics are re-touched. But it's good to see it through others' perspective.
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