Madame Chiang, wife of Chiang Ching-kuo, sends year-end holiday greetings to close friends

Faina Chiang Fang-liang, 1916–2004, known as Madame Chiang Ching-kuo.  First Lady of the Republic of China, 1978–1988.  Autograph note signed, Fiana & Ching-kuo, on note card stationery of Lt. General & Mrs. Chiang Ching-kuo, 4⅛” x 3”, no date, no place [Taipei, Taiwan].

Madame Chiang sends year-end holiday greetings from her husband and herself to U.S. Army Maj. Harold Lindsey “Lin” Arison, Jr. (1919–1998), and his wife, Mary Jane (1923–2004).   In full:  “Merry Christmas / and / Happy New Year / Faina & Ching-kuo.”

Madame Chiang, the wife of Nationalist Chinese President Chiang Ching-kuo, was a native of Belarus.  She met and married Chiang in 1935 when he lived in the former Soviet Union.  He moved to Moscow in 1925, when the Nationalist Party of his father, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and the Chinese Communist Party were in alliance.  When Chiang Kai-shek split with the Chinese Communists in 1927, Chiang Ching-kuo was sent to work in a steel plant in the Ural Mountains.  It was there that he met and married Faina Ipatyevna Vakhreva.  She took the Chinese name Chiang Fang-liang and thence was known as Faina Chiang Fang-liang.

Chiang Ching-kuo was the oldest and the only biological son of Chiang Kai-shek.  He was the Premier of the Republic of China at the time of his father’s death in 1975 and later succeeded him as President in 1978.  He served as President until his own death in 1988.

The Chiangs and the Arisons were close friends.  Lin Arison was a U.S. Army bandmaster who served on loan from the Army as Chiang Kai-shek’s Military Music Advisor from 1954 until he retired from the Army in 1963.  He organized and directed a school for music teachers, bandmasters, and instrumentalists, and he composed and arranged state ceremonial music for the government.  He rearranged and harmonized the national anthem of the Republic of China, and his version remains unchanged.

Madame Chiang has penned and signed this note in black fountain pen.  There is foxing and a stray red ink mark on the imprinted cover and scattered foxing spots on the rest of the piece, including a few tiny spots around the handwriting.  Overall the piece is in fine condition.

This letter comes directly from the Arison family and has not been offered on the autograph market before.  We are separately offering other letters by Chiang Ching-kuo and an archive of letters by Madame Chiang Kai-shek to the Arisons.  Click here and scroll down to see those listings.

Unframed.