The most prominent White figure on the Civil War’s eastern front was Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak, who was in the Far East when the October Revolution happened.  He first appears in the chronicle from which the preceding exhibit comes in January 1918 as a member of the “Far Eastern Committee of the Defence of the Motherland and the Constituent Assembly” in Harbin in China.  Returning to Russia, Kolchak would lead a White government and govern significant military forces in Siberia, becoming the de facto head of the entire White movement.

The book cover shown here depicts the familiar scene of St George (a Russian national saint) slaying the dragon. Note the white of the saint and the red of the beast. The book, White Siberia, was written by Konstantin Sakharov, a general in Kolchak’s forces, in the months after his emigration and provides an interesting insight into the White experience of conflict and defeat.

Bielaia Sibirʹ / Konstantin Sakharov (1923)  586:9.c.90.39