There are several indicators that Ilyin’s old friend Roman Zile, member of the BRT, the ROVS, and the NTS, was instrumental in bringing Ilyin to Switzerland, who had left Latvia in order to avoid conscription. In a letter to Dr. Hans Trüb from 1946, Ilyin mentions that “When in 1938 I landed in Switzerland...my friend Roman Sihle [Zile] brought me here, to then simply vanish.”² This was, however, not before Zile briefly served as Ilyin’s secretary in Switzerland, as noted in the memoirs of Gleb Rahr, whose half- sister Helena was married to Zile. Rahr states that in 1939 or 1940, Zile left for Nazi Germany and served in civil positions working for the railways of the Third Reich.³

That Zile was involved is also indicated by a recommendation letter from August 20, 1938 by Pastor Rudolf Grob to the Department of Immigration of the Zurich Police, which states: “Three weeks ago I received a visit from Prof. Dr. Ivan Ilyin...who had previously announced himself to me through a friend, Prof. Zihla [Zile] in Riga.” Grob mentioned that he knew Ilyin from “some of his writings,” including a work in Eckart-Verlag, and was aware of the activities of the Russian Brother Aid which “sends gifts of love and bibles to the oppressed Christians in Russia and is supported by the Confessing Church.”⁴ Grob was involved in the Swiss Nazi movement, who appeared “in 1940 as the first signatory of the ‘Petition of the Two Hundred’ (Eingabe der Zweihundert) [which] had called for a rapprochement with the Nazi regime,” according to the Swiss journalist Andreas Tobler.⁵ In a file from Ilyin’s dossier dated to 1942, Grob is described as “a German propagandist, known to be on the Right.”⁶

Amongst those whom Ilyin cited as a reference in his application for Swiss residence were also Prof. Dr. Theophil Spörri (1890–1974) and a certain Pastor W. Hoch from Zollikon. Between 1922 and 1956, Spörri taught Romance Philology at the University of Zurich and from 1932 onward served as Dean, and later as Rector, of the university. After its foundation in 1940, Spörri became the president of the Gotthard League (Gotthardbund), a militaristic-monarchical and Christian organization oriented on the Ancien Régime of Switzerland, which explicitly excluded Jews and Freemasons from joining.

In order to fund the move to Switzerland, Ilyin received help from his longtime supporter Sergei Rachmaninoff, who contributed the 4,000 Swiss francs necessary to take residence in the country.⁷ In Ilyin’s Swiss dossier, it is mentioned that the security deposit was delivered by Albert Riedweg, a representative of Rachmaninoff. According to Timothy Snyder:

It has also been mentioned that Ilyin’s move to Switzerland was assisted by Alexey Aleksandrovich Kvartirov (1911–1980), a former student of Ilyin in Berlin, and his sister Marina Deryugina (1916–2003), who was married to a ROCOR priest and appeared in the Orbit of the Russian Brother Aid.⁹

Ilyin also received support from Dr. Hans Trüb, who helped him to open a savings account after he settled in Switzerland.¹⁰ The two knew each other, at the latest, since 1931, when Trüb organized lectures for Ilyin at the Rotary Club in Switzerland.¹¹

Trüb was a former friend and colleague of C. G. Jung and Emil Medtner, who most likely had established the contact between Trüb and Ilyin.¹² Ljunggren mentions that Trüb was married to Susi Trüb, a temporary lover of Medtner. Susi Trüb was the sister of Antonia Wolf, the secretary and mistress of C. G. Jung, with whom Medtner also had an affair.¹³ Medtner himself had died two years prior to Ilyin’s arrival after having moved voluntarily from Switzerland to Nazi Germany.

White Congress (July 1938)

The first few months, from July to November 1938, the Ilyins resided in Locarno Monti. There, immediately upon his arrival in July 1938, Ilyin convened a White congress that included a range of prominent White émigré dignitaries. The reason for the gathering was certainly the impending Nazi Eastern campaign and the question of how the Whites should position themselves in such a war. As evidenced by pictures, among the participants of the congress were a number of Ilyin’s close affiliates and benefactors: Prince Nikolai B. Shcherbatov, Prince Sergei E. Trubetskoy, Nikolai A. Tsurikov, Pyotr Struve, Roman Zile, and Dr. Hans Trüb.¹⁴

The Bavaria-based Prince Shcherbatov had been a supporter of Ilyin at least since the 1926 Russian Foreign Congress. Just a year before the Locarno Monti congress, in March 1937, Shcherbatov had recommended Ilyin to the Munich publisher Kösel-Pustet for some translation work.¹⁵ The ROVS member Nikolai A. Tsurikov had previously contributed to Ilyin’s Russian Bell, while Ilyin in turn had written several articles for Tsurikov’s Russia and Slavdom.

Another prominent congress participant, Prince Sergey Evgenevich Trubetskoy (1890–1949), had left Russia on the same ship as Ilyin (as shown on a drawing by I. A. Matusevich), after being expelled for counterrevolutionary activity. Following the October Revolution, Trubetskoy participated in illegal meetings of the Union of Land Owners, the financial base of the counterrevolutionary Right Center, and in 1919 joined the equally anti-Bolshevik National Center. In the summer of 1922, he was arrested, but managed to leave for Germany, and finally settled in France. From 1922 to 1938, he collaborated with the ROVS and served as political adviser to the Generals Alexander Kutepov and Yevgeny Miller.

The 1930 White congress resulted in a collection of fourteen resolutions, which were attributed to all congress participants, but were most likely penned by Ilyin.¹⁶ The resolutions made clear that “national Russia” was in favor of a “ripening of an internal coup” in the Soviet Union, although “without an external war and not as a result of it.”¹⁷ Another resolution, “On Ukraine,” was directed against Ukrainian separatist aspirations—very much in line with Ilyin’s belief that Ukraine was a “cell” of Russia’s “national body,” not far off the concept of the Volkskörper in Nazi Germany.¹⁸

One of the resolutions also discussed the past and future role of Russia’s royalty. It made clear that the Whites were ready to support “every Russian person who courageously led Russia to salvation from Bolshevism and from foreign invasion,” even if such a person was not a member of the Romanov family. Also, the issue of the split in the Russian Orthodox Church was addressed in one of the resolutions, which denounced the schism and the political machinations behind it as hurting the “Orthodox Church, its world significance and revival” and did not “recognize the correctness of any one side.”

Another resolution denounced “Russian fascism” as “a sick course,” and it was “also condemned to involve the Russian General Military Union (ROVS) in fascist groups or to subordinate it to the instructions of the foreign secret police as contrary to Russian national interest.” The resolution spoke out against the undermining of the ROVS by the National Labor Union of a New Generation (NTSNP) that was deemed “harmful” to the White cause. Among other things, it decried the “division of emigration into generations,” and the absence of a religious fundament in the NTSNP. However, it also had praise for the organization, describing it as “national and White” as well as having “a precious supply of people with a noble will, a pure heart and a formidable future.”

In a separate resolution, the White congress addressed the rising tide of Nazi ideology among émigrés, which it denounced. A Nazi Russia would be a “new Bolshevism in reverse,” undermining the monarchist principles and bringing “incalculable troubles” to Russia. The resolution also referred to the “Jewish issue,” revealing the inherent antisemitism of the White congress. While blaming Nazi Germany for going after Jews and freemasons only for the purposes of power, the “Jewish issue” in a future Russia “should be resolved not by antisemitic pogroms, but by a new, strong, and independent government, thinking in a Christian, national, and stately way.” It should be noted that the delimitation from German Nazism in the resolution certainly did not keep away some of the congress’s participants from collaborating and liaising with Nazis in the years to come.

Just four months after the congress, another seminal event rattled the émigré monarchists. On October 12, 1938, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich died in Paris and was buried in Coburg six days later in the presence of Russian and German nobility. Vasily Biskupsky also attended the funeral.¹⁹

After Kirill’s death, his only son Vladimir Kirillovich assumed the leadership of the Legitimist Movement and kept contact with the Mladorossy.²⁰ He chose to assume the title of “Grand Duke” rather than that of Emperor. Although no contact between Ilyin and Vladimir Kirillovich is known at that point, the two worked closely together after WWII to reconsolidate the White movement.

A few months after the White congress, the Ilyins moved to an apartment in Zollikon, a suburb of Zurich.²¹ Ilyin received his residency permit on December 1, 1938, but it was made explicit that he was “to engage in scientific activity only.”²² Thus, in principle, he was only allowed to give lectures that were nonpolitical, for which a special permit was required from the Swiss Federal Immigrant Police (Eidgenössische Fremdenpolizei) each time, and the same rule applied to publications.²³ While Ilyin complied with those restrictions when he had to, he found numerous ways to circumvent them, for example by taking part in private political gatherings and publishing under pseudonyms.

Still in 1938, he embarked on no less a project than writing a political blueprint for a future Russian state after the fall of the Soviet Union, “The foundations of the state structure of the future Russia,” which he presented at an exclusive White get-together from January 22 to 28, 1939, in Geneva. Among the 22 participants were important White figures, including the Lodyzhensky brothers, as well as members of the ROCOR leadership such as: Metropolitan Anastasius (Gribanovsky), Hierarch of the ROCOR; Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev) of Bulgaria; and Archpriest Sergey Orlov, rector of a ROCOR church in Geneva.²⁴

Ilyin’s connections to the ROCOR, particularly Metropolitan Anastasius Gribanovsky (1873–1965) who was elected as the First Hierarch of the ROCOR in 1936, lasted until Ilyin’s death. It is no secret that the ROCOR collaborated with the Nazis. Having garnered their favor, in February 1938, the Nazi authorities demanded that all the Russian clergy in the territories controlled by Germany be under ROCOR’s jurisdiction.²⁵ Subsequently, Gribanovsky gave his blessings to the creation of the Russian Corps in September 1941, a formation of Russian officers under the control of the Nazi High Command and led by Boris Shteifon—a former contributor to Ilyin’s Russian Bell.

The Russian Corps was originally designated for military operations against the USSR; however, it was left in former Yugoslavia to fight against Communist insurgents. Metropolitan Anastasius subsequently had several meetings with General Andrey Vlasov and blessed the creation of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA). On November 18, 1944, Gribanovsky attended a solemn meeting in Berlin proclaiming the establishment of the ROA’s political arm, the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR). With the Soviet army approaching, Metropolitan Anastasius and the staff of the Synod, with the assistance of General Vlasov, left for Bavaria.