Victor’s Diary

The Family, as They Appear in the Diary

• Victor Karlovich Stember

  The artist himself, born in Moscow on January 28, 1863, and trained at the St. Petersburg Academy of Art. He painted prominent figures of pre-revolutionary Russia, including the dancer Anna Pavlova and members of the imperial family, and celebrated the 25th anniversary of his career with a 1913 exhibition of 75 paintings. He kept the diary published on this site from October 1918 until shortly before his death in Vladikavkaz on January 11, 1921.

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• Nadja, Mama, Mamulya

  Victor's wife, Nadja (Nadejda) Georgievsky Stember, born 1861. They married in Nice, France, and she went on to write her own memoir, "The Story of My Life." During the First World War she volunteered as a head nurse at a hospital in Tsarskoye Selo alongside the Empress Alexandra and two of her daughters, and after later joining the family in America she sewed costumes for the New York theaters.

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• Natasha, Natashenka

  His daughter, born 1890. She married Karl (later Charles) Warren and emigrated to America in 1916 with their young son Victor, bringing the family photograph album that forms the basis of this site's Photographs section. She later became involved with the theater in New York, sewing costumes alongside her mother.

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• Kolya, Nokolai

  His son, born 1891. He appears in early family photographs from the studio near the Moskvaretsky Bridge in Moscow. During the hardship of the diary's Moscow years, Victor worried for him especially, writing that he seemed to be in a very poor state.

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• Nadya, Nadichka, Nadinka

  His daughter, born 1893. Victor painted at least seven portraits of her over the years, the last at age 21, and one was used as the cover of a Russian magazine story about his work. She went on to become a painter herself, and after the Revolution held a government post producing official portraits of Lenin and other Soviet officials.

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• Sonya, Sonichka, Sodechka

  His daughter, born 1895. Her father painted her portrait at age 9, and she appears in several family photographs, including the 25th-anniversary celebration of his career in 1913. She married Yuri Tulin.

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• Ksenichka, Ksenya

  His daughter, born 1888, died at 5 years old of diphtheria. Victor's portrait of her was unfinished at her death; he waited two years and completed the hands and details using her younger sister Natasha, then five herself, as a model. Several later family photographs were deliberately staged around this portrait to include her memory.

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• Karlusha, Karl, Charles

  Natasha's husband, born Voinov and later known as Charles Warren in America. He had been selling Russian-made tractors in New York when the Revolution made returning home impossible, then supported the family playing piano for silent films until he secured an administrative position at a New York bank. He died at 53 of a heart attack while walking home from the bank.

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• Sokolov

  Nadya's first husband and the father of her son Kyrill. The diary describes him critically as unable to provide for his family; his divorce from Nadya was formalized in 1919.

• Litvinov, Vladimir Feodorovich, Voldemar

  Nadya's second husband, an artist himself. The diary describes him and his household warmly, and he helped arrange a position for Victor with Nizhny Novgorod's Department of Public Education; his own divorce, from a previous wife, was formalized the same day as Nadya's from Sokolov.

• Yuri Tulin or Yura

  Sonya's husband. He corresponded with the family from Kiev during the period covered by the diary.

• Victor, Victorushka, Victorik

  Natasha's son, later known as Victor Warren; born 1913. He left Russia for America with his mother in 1916, at age three, appearing with her in what the family album calls the last picture of the Stember family before their departure.

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• Kyrill, Kyrillchik

  Nadya's son by her first husband Sokolov, born 1916. As an infant he lived with his grandmother Mamulya while Nadya worked at a government post; he died in 1919, not yet three years old, a loss Victor's diary returns to more than once.

• Ksenichka

  Nadya's daughter, born 1920, in the diary's final year. She shares her name with Victor's own daughter Ksenya, who had died in childhood decades earlier.