Prince Theodore Kassatkine-Rostovsky

He was the son of Prince Nicholas Feodorovich Kasatkin-Rostovsky (1848-1908), a member of the State Council of Kursk Province, and Nadezhda Karlovna Montresor (1852-1917). He completed his studies in 1895 at the Saint Petersburg Corps of Pages with the rank of second lieutenant and was assigned to the Semenovsky Regiment of the Imperial Guard. He was promoted to captain in 1907. From 1900 to 1917, he devoted himself to writing (poems, plays in verse, songs). At the beginning of the First World War, he was a staff officer in the Semenovsky Regiment. He was wounded several times and was promoted to colonel in 1916. During the war, he was a correspondent for the newspaper "New Time". He retired in 1917. He joined the Volunteer Army after his mother, brother Nicholas, and sister Sophie were killed by the Bolsheviks on their estate in Cherniak. He thus participated in the Civil War. In 1919, he headed a secret organization of officers in the city of kyiv occupied by the Bolsheviks. He is the author of the anthem of the Volunteer Army. In 1919, he was evacuated to Varna, Bulgaria, then moved to Yugoslavia until 1923, when he settled in France, in Meudon, where he worked in an insurance company. He was a member of the Union of his regiment. He took an active part in the public life of the Russian emigration (theater, poems, and stories). He founded the "Théâtre intime" with his wife, the actress Dina (Evdokia) Nikitichna Kirova, on rue Campagne-Première in Paris. He continued his literary activity by translating Pushkin's tales into French. He died in Saint-Prix (now Val d'Oise). He was first buried in Meudon, then transferred to the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois cemetery. He was married twice, first to Olga Germoguenovna Khvochtchinskaya (1878-1952), then to Dina Nikitichna Kirova (1886-1982), who rests with him.