Vladimir Alexandrov, the author of “The Black Russian,” will speak at 2 p.m., Wednesday, March 13, in the Fretwell Building, Room 100. In his talk, he will tell the story of Frederick Bruce Thomas, the son of former slaves in Mississippi who became a famous impresario in pre-revolutionary Moscow and the “sultan of jazz” in Constantinople.
Alexandrov is the B. E. Bensinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Yale University. In his work “The Black Russian,” Alexandrov follows the life of Thomas, born in 1872. After the Civil War, Thomas’ parents became prosperous landowners in the Mississippi Delta. He spent his youth on his family’s farm until a white planter tried to steal it. When his father was murdered, Thomas left the American South and his home forever.
In Chicago and New York, Thomas trained as a waiter. Moving to London and then across Europe, he settled in color-blind Moscow, changing his name to Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas. Eventually, he became the owner of the open-air entertainment garden the Aquarium, which was filled with various theaters and restaurants. After opening the acclaimed theater complex Maxim, he became a millionaire.
The Bolshevik Revolution forced Thomas to flee to Odessa, and from there, he barely escaped with his family to Constantinople. With no money, he managed to start over again. His adaptability and aptitude for creating restaurants and entertainment spaces against all odds made him rich again until his luck finally ran out, and his creditors caught up with him. Thrown into debtor’s prison, he died in Constantinople in 1928.
“The Plain Dealer” in Cleveland described the book as a tale of a man with “substantial interpersonal and intellectual gifts” who rose to heights that would have been denied him had he remained in America to contend with institutional racism.
The Department of History in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences is hosting the talk, which is free and open to the public.