The Founder of the “Second Smolny” in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes Nataliia Kornelievna Erdeli

Abstract

Based on unpublished (archival materials) and published sources (records and memoirs), as well as literature, the article shows the efforts of Nataliia Kornelievna Erdeli, graduate of the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens in Saint Petersburg, aimed at reviving this women’s school abroad, in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (from 1929 — Kingdom of Yugoslavia) in the town of Velika Kikinda (in northern part of Serbia). After leaving Russia in 1920, this young, talented and energetic woman realized the need to create conditions for children who were forced to leave their homeland to receive an education. And Erdeli vigorously set to work: in 1921, after receiving permission and funds from the authorities of the country to open a school, which, at the suggestion of the Ministry of Education of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, was to be called the “First Russian-Serbian Girls’ Gymnasium-Boarding School”, she founded an educational institution for girls that resembled Smolny and then became its headmistress. Despite the institution’s official name, students were inculcated with Smolny traditions, such as wearing uniforms and following the rules of this institution. In order to obtain permission to name the school “Second Smolny”, Erdeli went to Denmark in 1924 to see the Empress Maria Feodorovna, a former patroness of the Smolny Institute. Although she managed to achieve this, an unexpected death prevented the formal renaming. Erdeli died in 1925 at the age of thirty-six. Nonetheless, it was not before 1931 that the authorities closed the school. Overall, more than 160 girls graduated from it.