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Membership card of the hunting society, Irina and Felix Yusupov in Rakitnoye
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Membership card of the hunting society
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In November 1862, the Moscow Hunting Society was established replacing the Moscow Hunting Club. Its aim was to control gun or game keeper hunting and to prevent the threatening extermination of game in Russia.
The most popular kind of hunting in Moscow was a winter one, when the hunter with a gundog went for wolves and foxes. The gundogs were the dogs that helped to find prey. At the moment of the shot they were close to the hunter, being actually under the gun. The role of gundogs was played by pointer dogs who made a stand over the killed game, retrievers who brought the game, and spaniels who scared a hidden bird.
In the 19th century, hare or fox hunting with hounds was considered by many not to be exciting enough. Nevertheless, members of the Society decided to popularize it. They tried several times to get a public pack of hounds, but all their attempts failed to succeed. They had to use the packs of private owners.
In 1877, the Moscow Hunting Society split. Its several members left and established a new society — the Moscow Society of Amateur Hunters. However, the first society became known as the Imperial Society for Breeding Game and Proper Hunting named after Alexander II.
The membership card No.1 of the Alexander II Hunting Society belonged to Felix Yusupov Sr.: in the early 20th century, he was an honorary member and chairman of the Society. The Yusupovs often stayed for hunting in Rakitnoye, and for many years they came to their estate only during the hunting season. The estate in Graivoron District, Kursk Governorate, was the most extensive among their mansions.
Felix Yusupov Jr. wrote in his memoirs about hunting:
The most popular kind of hunting in Moscow was a winter one, when the hunter with a gundog went for wolves and foxes. The gundogs were the dogs that helped to find prey. At the moment of the shot they were close to the hunter, being actually under the gun. The role of gundogs was played by pointer dogs who made a stand over the killed game, retrievers who brought the game, and spaniels who scared a hidden bird.
In the 19th century, hare or fox hunting with hounds was considered by many not to be exciting enough. Nevertheless, members of the Society decided to popularize it. They tried several times to get a public pack of hounds, but all their attempts failed to succeed. They had to use the packs of private owners.
In 1877, the Moscow Hunting Society split. Its several members left and established a new society — the Moscow Society of Amateur Hunters. However, the first society became known as the Imperial Society for Breeding Game and Proper Hunting named after Alexander II.
The membership card No.1 of the Alexander II Hunting Society belonged to Felix Yusupov Sr.: in the early 20th century, he was an honorary member and chairman of the Society. The Yusupovs often stayed for hunting in Rakitnoye, and for many years they came to their estate only during the hunting season. The estate in Graivoron District, Kursk Governorate, was the most extensive among their mansions.
Felix Yusupov Jr. wrote in his memoirs about hunting:
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Before the Crimea, where we would go in October, we stopped for a while to hunt in Rakitnoye, in Kursk Governorate. I was fond of gundog hunting back then. I liked to rush through the woods and fields after my greyhounds. My passion for hunting ended soon. It was so painful to hear the cry of a hare killed by me that from that day I stopped playing this bloody game. Many guests came to us in Rakitnoye to hunt. To get to the hunting places, sometimes distant, we had to ride through woods and fields. We ate under the cover and returned in the evening. After supper, the adults usually played cards, and my brother and I were supposed to go straight to bed. I remember our hunting seasons without joy. I had fallen out of love with hunting, finding it an abominable spectacle. And one day I gave up my hunting armor altogether and stopped going to Rakitnoye with my parents.
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Полное наименование предмета: Copy of the photograph. Membership card of the hunting society
Дата создания: 2015
Техника: copy, photo printing
Место создания: Rakitnoye
Владелец коллекции: Rakityansky Museum of Local History
Размеры: 30×24 cm
Дата создания: 2015
Техника: copy, photo printing
Место создания: Rakitnoye
Владелец коллекции: Rakityansky Museum of Local History
Размеры: 30×24 cm
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Irina and Felix Yusupov in Rakitnoye
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Irina and Felix Yusupov in Rakitnoye
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Felix Yusupov wrote in his memoirs:
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One day during horseback riding I saw a pretty girl accompanied by a lady of venerable years. Our eyes met. She made such an impression on me that I stopped the horse and watched after her for a long time. On the next day and afterwards I made the same way, hoping again to see the beautiful stranger. She did not appear, and I was greatly disappointed. But soon, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and Grand Duchess Ksenia Alexandrovna visited us together with their daughter, Princess Irina. What was my joy and surprise when I recognized in Irina my stranger! This time I admired to my heart the marvellous beauty, the future companion of my life. She looked very much like my father, and her profile resembled an ancient cameo.
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Princess Irina’s maternal grandfather was Alexander III, and her paternal grandfather was his cousin, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich. Felix Yusupov was heir to two titles at once — Count and Prince: his parents were Princess Zinaida Yusupova and Count Felix Sumarokov-Elston.
“The Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich came one day to my mother to discuss the proposed marriage between his daughter Irina and myself. I was happy, for it answered my secret aspirations. I could not forget the young stranger I had met on a walk on the Crimean road. From that day on, I knew it was my destiny. Just a little girl turned into a dazzlingly beautiful young lady. She was restrained because of shyness, but restraint added to her charm, surrounded by mystery. Compared to this new experience, all my previous hobbies had been miserable. I understood the harmony of true feeling, ” Felix recalled.
Felix and Irina got married on February 22, 1914, in St. Petersburg, in the chapel of the Anichkov Palace. After the wedding the young couple left on their honeymoon. “But the newspapers followed us, and there was no peace for us anywhere, ” wrote Yusupov.
World War I caught the Yusupovs on their journey. From London, they went to their relatives in Kissingen, and there, they were detained as prisoners of war until the end of the war by order of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Irina unsuccessfully sought permission to return to Russia from her cousin, the Kaiser’s daughter-in-law. Prince Yusupov Sr. engaged a Spanish ambassador as a diplomatic mediator. In the course of diplomatic negotiations with the Minister of Foreign Affairs Gottlieb von Jagow an agreement was reached: a special train for members of the embassy and other Russian citizens wishing to leave Germany was made available to the Russian ambassador. When Emperor Wilhelm was informed of the Yusupovs’ flight, he ordered their arrest at the border, but the order was too late. The Yusupovs managed to cross the border into neutral Denmark.
“The Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich came one day to my mother to discuss the proposed marriage between his daughter Irina and myself. I was happy, for it answered my secret aspirations. I could not forget the young stranger I had met on a walk on the Crimean road. From that day on, I knew it was my destiny. Just a little girl turned into a dazzlingly beautiful young lady. She was restrained because of shyness, but restraint added to her charm, surrounded by mystery. Compared to this new experience, all my previous hobbies had been miserable. I understood the harmony of true feeling, ” Felix recalled.
Felix and Irina got married on February 22, 1914, in St. Petersburg, in the chapel of the Anichkov Palace. After the wedding the young couple left on their honeymoon. “But the newspapers followed us, and there was no peace for us anywhere, ” wrote Yusupov.
World War I caught the Yusupovs on their journey. From London, they went to their relatives in Kissingen, and there, they were detained as prisoners of war until the end of the war by order of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Irina unsuccessfully sought permission to return to Russia from her cousin, the Kaiser’s daughter-in-law. Prince Yusupov Sr. engaged a Spanish ambassador as a diplomatic mediator. In the course of diplomatic negotiations with the Minister of Foreign Affairs Gottlieb von Jagow an agreement was reached: a special train for members of the embassy and other Russian citizens wishing to leave Germany was made available to the Russian ambassador. When Emperor Wilhelm was informed of the Yusupovs’ flight, he ordered their arrest at the border, but the order was too late. The Yusupovs managed to cross the border into neutral Denmark.
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Полное наименование предмета: Copy of the photo “Irina and Felix Yusupov in Rakitnoye”
Дата создания: 2015
Техника: photo printing
Место создания: Rakitnoye
Владелец коллекции: Rakityansky Museum of Local History
Размеры: 21×29,7 cm
Техника: photo printing
Место создания: Rakitnoye
Владелец коллекции: Rakityansky Museum of Local History
Размеры: 21×29,7 cm
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Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation
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Membership card, Yusupov in Rakitnoye
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