Measures 4 ½" x 7", printed on matte photo paper, mounted on thick cardboard backing. We find out from the inscription on the verso that this is Хорунжий ("Khorunzhiy", Cossack rank equivalent to army rank of Sergeant Major) Boris Surovetsky, an instructor with the Emperor Alexander III Don Cossack Cadet Corps Academy. Born in 1884, graduated from the 2nd Moscow Imperial Cadet Corps in 1903, The Cossack Company of the Nicholas Cavalry School in 1905, St. Petersburg Pedagogical Courses in 1914. Served in two different Cossack regime

Measures 4 ½" x 7", printed on matte photo paper, mounted on thick cardboard backing. We find out from the inscription on the verso that this is Хорунжий ("Khorunzhiy", Cossack rank equivalent to army rank of Sergeant Major) Boris Surovetsky, an instructor with the Emperor Alexander III Don Cossack Cadet Corps Academy. Born in 1884, graduated from the 2nd Moscow Imperial Cadet Corps in 1903, The Cossack Company of the Nicholas Cavalry School in 1905, St. Petersburg Pedagogical Courses in 1914. Served in two different Cossack regiments from 1905 to 1912, and then was transferred to the Don Cossack Cadet Academy. The photo was taken in emigration in 1929 in Herzegovina, next to the formerly Austrian fortress which then housed the Don Cadet Corps Academy.

The photo is in outstanding condition. Even tilting it to reflect a bright light reveals just a tiny smudge to the bottom margin, transparent and completely invisible when looking at the photo at a normal viewing angle.

The First Kuban Campaign was a series of running battles fought in horrible winter conditions in the early 1918 by a handful of cadets, army officers and Cossacks against "proletarian" hordes that were vastly superior in numbers, arms and supplies. It was the true beginning of the organized resistance against the Reds, essentially the spark that ignited the Russian Civil War. Lavr Kornilov, the legendary first leader of the White Army, was killed early during the campaign while storming the city of Yekaterinodar (the capital of the Kuban Cossack Region, later renamed Krasnodar). Although the campaign failed to reach its goals, it preserved the core of the future White Army - and created a truly heroic example and inspiration for the anti-Bolshevik resistance movement throughout Russia. Based on the memoirs of General Denikin who had replaced the late Kornilov in April 1918 as Commander of the Russian Volunteer Army (later, Armed Forces of the South of Russia), the significance of this first campaign cannot be overestimated.

Please note that the St. George cross in our photo is for size reference.
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