I got a call from Switzerland, but not quite the information I expected about the legacy of a great Finn.
Independence Week complete a small briefing on Mannerheim’s legacy. I got a call about it while I was shopping at the Red Mall.
The call came from Switzerland.
I was much earlier, in the years 2013 and 2017, made a monthly supplement to the stuff C. G. E. Mannerheim close ones. Marski is the biggest Finn, so it was voted Yle’s poll in 2004, but her daughters play an insignificant role in Finland.
I had read correspondence between Mannerheim and his children at the National Archives. Stasie was born in 1893 and Sophy in 1895, when their father was in his twenties in St. Petersburg. The daughters did not live in Finland – the older one settled in England, the younger one in Paris. They wrote to each other in French.
The letters showed that Father Mannerheim was trying to get the adult Sophy to leave occupied Paris, but Sophy did not want to leave the woman she loved. The woman was Alix Depret-Bixio, An aristocrat who fled Russia, too. I guess all parties finally agreed to stay.
When Sophy Mannerheim died in 1963, Finland was asked whether the estate could be used for a Mannerheim Museum or for writing history. Sophy had bequeathed his property to Alix, who sent at least a few letters to Finland. But not everything.
So could there still be a legacy in France that would tell us about Marski’s relationship with his daughter – or about the daughter herself?
Knocker in 2017 in Paris at the door of Alix Depret-Bixion’s relatives. The charming old couple offered coffee and said they didn’t know Aunt Alix’s friends. But they had an idea who the property left over from Alix would belong to today.
There was no answer from Switzerland. I left messages.
When the stuff was written some time ago, the phone rang in Red.
She was the granddaughter of Alix Depret-Bixio. He had received my message. No, he had not inherited anything that belonged to the Mannerheim. The goods of the noble women were auctioned off or tricked away somewhere, he said.
But he wanted to tell about the grave.
Alix Depret-Bixio before their own death, moved Sophy’s grave so that they now rest side by side in the orthodox cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.
Some time ago there were flowers only on Sophy’s side of the grave. It is taken care of by the foundation in Finland.
He had now also paid for the plantings in the adjacent grave. The Finns agreed to go see it.
The author is the producer of HS’s feat editor.
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