{"id":661,"date":"2026-05-13T14:32:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T14:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alfoart.com\/derionzini-en\/?page_id=661"},"modified":"2026-05-13T14:53:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T14:53:49","slug":"chapter-iv","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/alfoart.com\/derionzini-en\/chapter-iv\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter IV"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Pursuit of a Title, a Moscow Infant, and the Austrian Archives<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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The sudden vanishing of Lieutenant Ludwig von Strahlborn into the vastness of Moscow certainly solved his own debt problems, but it left his wife, Praskovya, staring down a pack of hungry creditors with scarcely a penny to her name. As we recall, all her spirited attempts to squeeze any funds from the sold estate had failed rather spectacularly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Praskovya Ivanovna would hardly be the heroine of our little saga if she were the sort to simply give up. If one cannot extract money from an absconded husband, she reasoned, one must at the very least extract a title from him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Especially since she had the perfect man for the job close at hand, the retired clerk, Alexander Nikolayevich Yunich. This maestro of petitions, who had already demonstrated his flair in the guardianship dispute, threw himself into the task with his customary grandeur.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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In 1849, Praskovya officially filed a petition to have herself and her three sons by Ludwig – Fyodor, Konstantin, and Lev – inscribed into the noble lineage of the von Strahlborns. It is worth noting that her youngest daughter, Elizaveta, was completely left out of this request (perhaps nobility was deemed somewhat secondary for a young girl, though Elizaveta\u2019s future would soon become closely and rather scandalously entangled with Mr. Yunich himself).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To support her noble claims, Praskovya gathered extracts from the metric books detailing her marriage to Ludwig and the births of their sons. In every single instance, the godfather listed was none other than her runaway husband\u2019s own brother, Alexander Karlovich Strahlborn. This was the same Alexander who had peacefully married Praskovya\u2019s sister (Irina Tregubova), retired from the military, and was quietly serving as a district police officer, doing his level best to stay entirely out of his relatives’ scandals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Governing Senate, however, after reviewing the metric books, demanded to see Ludwig\u2019s official service record. Unsurprisingly, Praskovya did not have it tucked away in a drawer, and her request for the title was denied. Refusing to admit defeat (and likely spurred on by the masterful drafting of Yunich), she somehow managed to extract the necessary paperwork from the military department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The brief form confirmed it: Cornet of the Kyiv Hussar Regiment, from the Estonian nobility. Having scrutinized this document, the Vladimir Noble Assembly finally relented and decreed that Praskovya\u2019s sons should be inscribed in the second part of the genealogical book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curiously, there is no longer a single whisper in these records about the frightfully expensive private boarding school Praskovya had been so eager to send her sons to earlier. It is merely noted that the boys were enrolled in a state-run educational institution.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The Venetian Connection and the Austrian Archive<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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While Yunich was busy hammering out nobility for Praskovya’s sons, a far grander title was glimmering on the horizon. Praskovya had a son-in-law – the husband of her daughter from her first marriage, Maria Lyalina (the very same girl who had tried to flee her hussar stepfather but was caught on the road). The son-in-law’s name was Alexander Derionzini, and in certain documents, his wife was officially addressed as a countess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the exact same years that Yunich was furiously penning petitions to the Vladimir Assembly, a certain Alexander Rionzini<\/em> submitted an official inquiry to the Austrian archives seeking confirmation of his countly title. This file, which spans some fifty pages and was unearthed following a tip from the historian Sergei Gavrilov, rests to this day in the Austrian State Archive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Given Yunich’s manic enthusiasm for firing off lawsuits and petitions to every conceivable authority, one might reasonably suspect that he had a rather active hand in digging up these “Venetian roots.” But the tale of the Italian count and the skeletons rattling in his closet is a story for future installments. For now, let us return to our dear clerk.<\/p>\n\n\n

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From Mother to Daughter<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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By the early 1850s, the entire arrangement within the Strahlborn household had shifted rather radically. The file titled “On the Report of the Civil Governor Concerning the Retired Clerk Alexander Yunich” (RGIA. 1286\/13\/947) reads very much like a page torn straight from a satirical Russian novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It appeared that the tireless Mr. Yunich was no longer living with Praskovya, but rather\u2026 with her unmarried daughter by Ludwig, the young Elizaveta von Strahlborn<\/strong><\/em>. Yes, the very same daughter for whom her mother had not even bothered to request a title of nobility.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The entire town of Gavrilov Posad groaned beneath the weight of Yunich’s endless petitions, begging to have him evicted to absolutely anywhere else. The governor filed a report to St. Petersburg, but under rather mysterious circumstances, Yunich’s eviction, scheduled for 1853, was quietly suspended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n …Indeed resides in Gavrilov Posad with the maiden Elizaveta von Strahlborn and an infant they brought from Moscow. He receives his upkeep through private engagement in litigious affairs for certain nobles, such as composing all manner of complaints against whomever it may be, which is precisely why the majority of the Posad’s residents desire Yunich’s removal.\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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Yet by 1854, a fresh appeal found its way to the head of the Vladimir province. This prompted a reply from the civil governor, who, relying upon the report of the district marshal of nobility, stated:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n Recognizing Yunich as a man harmful both to the Strahlborn family and to the peace of other persons, whom he needlessly draws into various complaints, disturbances of public tranquility, and judicial lawsuits… I have the honor of requesting permission to remove Yunich to another town under police supervision.\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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“Yunich continues to busy himself with drafting petitions and meddling in affairs, often of a slanderous nature, with the sole aim of procuring a livelihood for himself, and through his deceitful advice draws many into generating pointless lawsuits. Therefore, Yunich’s removal from his current place of residence will prove beneficial for the peace of the local inhabitants<\/em>.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The governor agreed to Yunich’s expulsion, noting that the clerk’s removal would be “beneficial for the peace of the local inhabitants” (whether it would be beneficial for the inhabitants of his new<\/em> home was tactfully omitted from the document). In the end, a truly phenomenal decision was reached: Yunich was allowed to choose his own town for exile, pack himself off voluntarily, and cease multiplying lawsuits among the local populace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Fates of Yunich, Praskovya, and Elizaveta.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The riddle of the mysterious infant, whom Yunich and Elizaveta had so casually brought from Moscow, is hidden within the Yandex archives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The surname Yunich is exceedingly rare. While perusing the confessional records of the 1st Moscow Gymnasium for the year 1867, I stumbled upon a lodger: a 14-year-old gymnasium student named Nikolai Alexandrovich Yunich. If one counts backward fourteen years, one arrives precisely at 1853, the very year the infant appeared in Gavrilov Posad. Curiously, in the records of that same parish for adjacent years, this same boy is listed either with no surname at all or simply as Nikolai Alexandrov.
I would venture to guess that this was indeed the illegitimate son of Yunich (Alexander Nikolayevich) and the maiden Elizaveta von Strahlborn. Unable to officially recognize the child, the boy lived under a formal surname derived from the name of his godfather-father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why, one might ask, did our great schemer not simply marry Elizaveta? He could not marry Praskovya, of course, as she remained formally wed to the vanished Ludwig, but Elizaveta was perfectly free. The answer turned out to be delightfully mundane: the archives contain numerous mentions of “the wife of the retired clerk, Natalya Khrisanfova Yunich.”<\/strong><\/em> Our hero had been married all along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He outlived them all. Praskovya, despite having six children, spent the remainder of her life in an almshouse and died in 1868. Elizaveta passed away from consumption in a priest’s house in 1875 at the age of forty-two, remaining the unmarried maiden von Strahlborn to the very end. As for Yunich, he merrily continued his participation in judicial lawsuits. In 1867, he pops up in a case concerning the “untimely provision of information by the Simbirsk guardianship,” and in 1876, the elderly litigator makes one more appearance in the metric books of Moscow as the godfather to yet another illegitimate infant, Alexander.
He carried his passion for litigation with him through his entire life, leaving behind hundreds of pages covered in tiny handwriting and several rather brilliant archival files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We have yet to return to the two sisters, the daughters of Pyotr Lyalin, as well as a rather marvelous investigation into the origins of Count Derionzini, not to mention the detective stories swirling around the members of his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2190 Read Chapter III<\/a><\/em>   |   To be continued\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Pursuit of a Title, a Moscow Infant, and the Austrian Archives The sudden vanishing of Lieutenant Ludwig von Strahlborn into the vastness of Moscow certainly solved his own debt problems, but it left his… <\/p>\n

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