Anna Alexandrovna Orr
(née Taranovskaya; literary pseudonym: Dalnyaya; 1902? – 15 June 1958, Paris)
Information about Anna Alexandrovna Orr — as is so often the case with figures of the first wave of Russian emigration — remains exceedingly scarce. If her fate were to be summed up in a single phrase, she might perhaps be described as “a forgotten poet of Russian China.” What follows are the few fragments of biographical information that we have so far been able to recover.
Anna Orr was born into the family of Colonel Alexander Ivanovich Taranovsky (1881–1953, Qingdao), an officer of the Imperial Russian Army and a descendant of an old Little Russian family. He had several children, among them Evgenia Taranovskaya (1920, Harbin – 2006, Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois), who later became a pianist of some renown in France.
In exile, Anna first lived in Harbin and subsequently in Shanghai. She married the composer Harry Orr (1885, Baltic Provinces of the Russian Empire – 1972, Hong Kong). Her short stories and essays appeared in the Harbin literary journal Rubezh, and she was among the founders of the city’s literary circle Ponedelnik (“Monday”). During the war she spent four years in a Japanese internment camp.
In 1945, Anna Orr moved to France. She spent the final years of her life in Paris. In 1957, the newspaper Russkaya Mysl (Russian Thought) published her memoir of her encounters in Paris with Alexei Remizov, entitled “A Man Not of This World” (Chelovek ne otsyuda). She also contributed to the émigré journal Vozrozhdenie.
In France, in addition to Remizov, Anna Orr maintained close friendships with the poet and critic Sergei Konstantinovich Makovsky; the artist Vasily Petrovich Barsov (1901–1965, Bielefeld); Olga Valentinovna Kozhevnikova (1897–1977, Chelles, near Paris), a former actress of the Moscow Kamerny Theatre; the physician and writer Vladimir Nikolaevich Unkovsky (1888, Kharkiv – 1964, Chelles, near Paris); the philosopher Valentin Nikolaevich Speransky (1877, Moscow – 1957, Paris); and the writer Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev and his wife.
The Archive
The archive comes directly from the poet’s heirs and is remarkably extensive. Among other things, it preserves scattered remnants of the Taranovsky family heritage, including an eighteenth-century portrait of one of Taranovskaya’s great-grandmothers, now unfortunately in a very poor state of preservation.
A substantial part of the archive consists of typescripts of Anna Orr’s poems bearing her extensive handwritten corrections. It also contains books inscribed to her by fellow poets, including two presentation copies from Sergei Makovsky; a photograph showing Anna Orr together with the already very elderly Alexei Remizov; as well as gramophone records and musical scores.
The most important part of the archive, however, is the correspondence addressed to Anna Orr by various figures of the Russian émigré world. This includes letters from her husband, who remained in China after Anna’s departure for France.
The body of correspondence is considerable. Of particular significance are the groups of letters from Boris Zaitsev, Sergei Makovsky, Vasily Barsov and Vladimir Unkovsky.
(née Taranovskaya; literary pseudonym: Dalnyaya; 1902? – 15 June 1958, Paris)
Information about Anna Alexandrovna Orr — as is so often the case with figures of the first wave of Russian emigration — remains exceedingly scarce. If her fate were to be summed up in a single phrase, she might perhaps be described as “a forgotten poet of Russian China.” What follows are the few fragments of biographical information that we have so far been able to recover.
Anna Orr was born into the family of Colonel Alexander Ivanovich Taranovsky (1881–1953, Qingdao), an officer of the Imperial Russian Army and a descendant of an old Little Russian family. He had several children, among them Evgenia Taranovskaya (1920, Harbin – 2006, Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois), who later became a pianist of some renown in France.
In exile, Anna first lived in Harbin and subsequently in Shanghai. She married the composer Harry Orr (1885, Baltic Provinces of the Russian Empire – 1972, Hong Kong). Her short stories and essays appeared in the Harbin literary journal Rubezh, and she was among the founders of the city’s literary circle Ponedelnik (“Monday”). During the war she spent four years in a Japanese internment camp.
In 1945, Anna Orr moved to France. She spent the final years of her life in Paris. In 1957, the newspaper Russkaya Mysl (Russian Thought) published her memoir of her encounters in Paris with Alexei Remizov, entitled “A Man Not of This World” (Chelovek ne otsyuda). She also contributed to the émigré journal Vozrozhdenie.
In France, in addition to Remizov, Anna Orr maintained close friendships with the poet and critic Sergei Konstantinovich Makovsky; the artist Vasily Petrovich Barsov (1901–1965, Bielefeld); Olga Valentinovna Kozhevnikova (1897–1977, Chelles, near Paris), a former actress of the Moscow Kamerny Theatre; the physician and writer Vladimir Nikolaevich Unkovsky (1888, Kharkiv – 1964, Chelles, near Paris); the philosopher Valentin Nikolaevich Speransky (1877, Moscow – 1957, Paris); and the writer Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev and his wife.
The Archive
The archive comes directly from the poet’s heirs and is remarkably extensive. Among other things, it preserves scattered remnants of the Taranovsky family heritage, including an eighteenth-century portrait of one of Taranovskaya’s great-grandmothers, now unfortunately in a very poor state of preservation.
A substantial part of the archive consists of typescripts of Anna Orr’s poems bearing her extensive handwritten corrections. It also contains books inscribed to her by fellow poets, including two presentation copies from Sergei Makovsky; a photograph showing Anna Orr together with the already very elderly Alexei Remizov; as well as gramophone records and musical scores.
The most important part of the archive, however, is the correspondence addressed to Anna Orr by various figures of the Russian émigré world. This includes letters from her husband, who remained in China after Anna’s departure for France.
The body of correspondence is considerable. Of particular significance are the groups of letters from Boris Zaitsev, Sergei Makovsky, Vasily Barsov and Vladimir Unkovsky.
