INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF MADAME BLAVATSKY

CHAPTER I

CHILDHOOD
QUOTING the authoritative statement of her late uncle,
General Fadeef, made at my request in 1881, at a time
when he was Joint-Secretary of State in the Home
Department at St Petersburg, Mme. H. P. Blavatsky
(Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, to give the name at full
length) "is, from her father's side, the daughter of
Colonel Peter Hahn, and granddaughter of General
Alexis Hahn von Rottenstern Hahn (a noble family of
Mecklenburg, Germany, settled in Russia); and she is,
from her mother's side, the daughter of Helene Fadeef,
and granddaughter of Privy Councillor Andrew Fadeef
and of the Princess Helene Dolgorouky. She is the
widow of the Councillor of State, Nicephore Blavatsky,
late Vice-Governor of the Province of Erivan, Caucasus."

Mdlle. Hahn, to use her family name in referring to
her childhood, was born at Ekaterinoslaw, in the south
of Russia, in 1831. Von Hahn would be the proper
German form of the name, and in French writing or
conversation the name, as used by Russians, would be
De Hahn, but in its strictly Russian form the preflx
was generally dropped...