Dmitri de Woronin

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Dmitri De Woronin posing with a wild beast, 1937. J. Michael Rosenblum's collection, courtesy Rob Hansen

(May 23, 1908 – ????)

Dmitri de Woronin was a fan, sf reader, letter writer and aspiring author in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe, then of course British Empire) active in the 1930s and 1940s. He was a member of the Science Fiction Association (SFA), joining before July 1937 (see Science Fiction Gazette #4).

Both the name and country show his origin in St. Petersburg, Russia – the colony supported immigration and became home to many fleeing the Bolshevik revolution who could not get a foothold elsewhere. Passenger lists accessible via ancestry.co.uk show the de Woronin family arriving in London on October 3, 1920 and then departing for Cape Town on October 1, 1925. Per Geni, he had a brother and two sisters, later a wife but no children. He became a citizen (or rather His Majesty's subject as it was then) in Southern Rhodesia, swearing the oath of allegiance in September 1930.[1] Several de Woronins appear through Zimbabwean history.[2] Phone directories from 1980s don't include any "de Woronin, D." but the 1981 Cape Town one does;[3] Geni says Dmitri died in South Africa though the date is not known.

Dmitri clearly got to sf (and later learned about the SFA) by reading US prozines, to which he had sent letters from the early 1930s. 

The old A.S. made a science fiction maniac out of me, then went and died... Did I cry! However, the new A.S. was born.[4]

Further letters can be found especially in Weird Tales; Dmitri started out from a P. O. Box in Bulawayo, but by April 1939 seems to have moved to the village of Trelawney, 300 miles northeast.[5] Futurian Vol. 2 No. 3 (January 1939) mentioned: 

far-away fan De Woronin (in Rhodesia) is submitting some of his mss. to Weird Tales, and Marvel Science . here's wishing him luck!

In a letter published in Futurian War Digest #24 (November 1942),[6] replying to a non-forwarded letter from J. Michael Rosenblum "of April 6, 1940" (!) apparently in May/June 1942, Dmitri explained he'd been away on military service for two years, getting a month's furlough only then: He started in 1940 in Palestine and spent the autumn fighting Italians in the Western Desert. After "a dose of pneumonia" he was transferred to East Africa and became a Staff Sergeant in the headquarters of the 25 Brigade, employing his photography skills; he also duplicated a manual to "improv[e] the photo mindedness, etc. of the Bde." 

So now I've done Cape to Cairo by road with the exception of the Asmara – Cairo stretch. […] Haven't done any reading for years. There are Astoundings and Unknowns for 1940 waiting to be read. The Weird Tales are still coming…

He also mentioned he had 'three "war-poems" published in the Salisbury Paper' (i. e. a newspaper in the country's capital, now called Harare; despite the capitalisation, apparently there has never been a periodical of this exact name) and 'Wrote a Rhodesian story last year, and sent it to my collaborator in Chicago.'

FWD #31 (Oct 1943) reported (with barely a half year's delay) de Woronin serving in Ceylon (this warranted him a namecheck in a 2009 academic history),[7] again using his fannish (or at least applicable) skills "Helping put out … our divisional 16 page mag in Swahili".

The final FWD #39 (March 1945) reported his discharge from the army after suffering malaria in Burma. There seem to be no traces of his fanac afterward; pity, he was a good letter-writer.

____

  1. ↑ Parliamentary Papers vol. 25 at Google Books
  2. ↑ Dmitri's younger brother Ura George (going by just U. G. de Woronin) was a professional hunter and writer. He died "gored by an elephant"; see Financial Times 15 September 1983, p. 1, Zimbabwean Government Gazette or in more detail paywalled https://newspaperarchive.com/lethbridge-herald-sep-15-1983-p-2/
  3. ↑ Cape Times Peninsula Directory at Google Books
  4. ↑ Astounding Stories July 1934, page 154 Also quoted by George Guffey: "The Death and Rebirth of Astounding Stories: A Systems Analysis", in Genre at the Crossroads: The Challenge of Fantasy, ed George Slusser and Jean-Pierre Baricelli, Xenos Books 2003
  5. ↑ https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tales_v33n04_1939-04/page/n157/mode/2up?q=woronin
  6. ↑ Futurian War Digest #24 (November 1942) at fiawol.org.uk.
  7. ↑ The Limits of British Colonial Control in South Asia: Spaces of Disorder in the Indian Ocean Region, Routledge 2009
Person 1908—????
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