Memoirs of a French woman about the days of the Whites in Sevastopol

Abstract

This article is a publication of a source from the State Archives of the city of Sevastopol, with a preliminary commentary that discusses the relevance of this document to the study of French intervention in the former Russian Empire. It is a precious testimony of a local woman who describes some events in the life of her husband, a French sailor named Jean Lebreton. The latter deserted his cuirassier during the French intervention and settled in Sebastopol. Madame Lebreton, whose first name is unknown to us, relates her misadventures and those of her husband and reveals their tragic fate. In addition, this archive contains two letters from her husband written while the couple was imprisoned in Constantinople in 1921. The study of these documents seems relevant both from a shared history perspective and in the scope of gender studies, in order to address the episode of the Revolution and the Russian Civil War.