Don Croner’s World Wide Wanders: Mongolia | Helena Roerich

Helena Roerich was born on February 12, 1879, in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Her father was the architect-academician Ivan Shaposhnikov. Her mother Ekaterina was the granddaughter of the famous Russian general Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov, who was instrumental in the Defeat of Napoleon in 1812. Helena was also a distant relative of outstanding Russian composer M. Mussorgsky, and she herself claimed to be a descendant of the Mongol Khans of the Golden Horde who ruled Russia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Helena Ivanovna Roerich (1879–1953)

Helena was a precociously intelligent child who could read and write in three languages by the age of seven. From a very early age she took a serious interest in literature and philosophy. She also exhibited various psychic abilities. Even as a child she claimed that two very tall men, invisible to others, often appeared to her and offered advice. She latter attended Marinsky Gymnasium and studied music. A brilliant pianist, she anticipated a career as a concert performer. Fate soon decreed otherwise.

In 1899, at the estate of her aunt Princess Y. Putyatina, Helena Shaposhnikova first met Nicholas Roerich, then twenty-five years old and a recent graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. The spiritual affinity the two experienced led to marriage in 1901, and their subsequent conjugal relationship resulted in two sons, George, born in 1902, and Svetoslav, born in October 1904.

Helena Roerich

After the 1917 Revolution in Russia Nicholas and Helena Roerich moved to England. In 1920, while living in London, they joined the Theosophical Society, founded by their fellow Russian Madame Helena Blavatsky. On March 24, 1920, while in London, Helena allegedly meet with Master Morya, one of the Mahatmas of the Himalayas who Madame Blavatsky had also claimed as a teacher. The communications Helena said she received from Master Morya served as the basis for Agni Yoga, her own synthesis of ancient Eastern beliefs and modern Western thought.

On March 6, 1925, Nicholas and Helena Roerich, along with their son George, left Darjeeling, India on what would be a Three-year Circumnavigation of Central Asia and Tibet, with stops in Kashmir in India, Xinjiang Province in China, the Russian Altai Mountains in Siberia, Ulaan Baatar and Amarbuyant Khiid in Mongolia, the Tibetan Plateau, and numerous places in between.

Helena Roerich

The Roerich Expedition arrived in Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia in September of 1926 and soon acquired living quarters in the eastern suburbs of the city. While living here in Ulaan Baatar Helena first published her book Foundations of Buddhism, the summation of her years of inquiry into the Buddha’s teachings.

Free PDF Copy of Foundations of Buddhism. This is a Limited Time Only Offer. Don’t email me later belly-aching that you were not aware that this was a Limited Time Only Offer.