It is not in the same league as Fabergé but the story is precious

It sits on the mantelpiece, in a relative’s house, solid and mysterious. Its surface is handengraved with a delicate furled leaf pattern. ‘What’s this?’ I asked the first time I saw it, lifting it, feeling its weight. ‘Is it Fabergé?’ ‘No,’ he told me. ‘It’s Russian alright. But not by that particular master.’ Unscrewing it at a seam in the middle, he revealed two artfully concealed bases which convert the half shells into a pair of eggcups. I know now, this is not a practical object – it is a token of love, its hidden use intended to delight and intrigue rather than serve any useful purpose.

In pre-Christian times, Russians regarded eggs as fertility symbols representing renewal or new life. Later, Orthodox Russians traditionally brought hand-painted eggs to church at Easter to have them blessed, then gave them to family and friends as gifts. This engraved silver egg is a continuum of that tradition and was probably inspired by the objets d’art designed by Fabergé.

Fabergé’s eggs were fabulous creations made from gold, silver and precious jewels, each with a unique design. Today the eggs, which rarely come up for auction, are worth millions.

But this little silver egg is not in the same league, I am advised that it is barely worth more than the silver from which it is made. However, the story of this egg is precious – a story that has been told many times in our family since I first saw it. The egg was made in the late 1880s and bought some years later, not by a member of the Russian aristocracy, but by Konrad Peterson, a Latvian revolutionary and pioneering civil engineer, who lived and died in Ireland.

Born in Riga, then part of the Russian Empire, aged 17 and a member of the Latvian revolutionary movement, Konrad fought for his country’s freedom in the Russian revolution in Riga in 1905. Forced to flee from retribution and repression in its aftermath, he and several others were smuggled out of Latvia in a cargo ship sailing to Scotland concealed in a roll of lino. From there, he travelled to Ireland to stay with his uncle Charles Peterson, a director of Kapp and Peterson, the pipe and tobacco company whose original shop was for many years a well-known landmark at the end of Grafton Street (now Petersons on Nassau Street).

Konrad only intended to stay for a short period, planning to travel on to America. But his uncle persuaded him to study in Dublin and invited Konrad to live in his home on Leinster Road, Rathmines. There he became friendly with neighbour Constance Markiewicz and was a regular visitor to her home, at that time a hotbed of Irish republicanism. Konrad was an ebullient figure, a bear of a man with tales of revolution. He became a well-known figure in Dublin literary and theatrical circles, was actively involved in the Socialist Party of Ireland, the Labour Movement, and was a nationalist sympathiser and friendly with leading republican figures including James Connolly. He was said to have been involved in the communications strategy for the 1916 Easter Rising.

By 1920, Latvia had been declared an independent republic and Konrad returned to Riga, where he was welcomed back as a national hero. Irish teacher Helen Yeates accompanied him and they married there. The couple settled in Riga and in 1923 they had a daughter, Izeult Pamela Peterson.

Konrad’s career flourished over the following years, and he rose to the position of director of public works for the Latvian government. However, in 1940 at the beginning of World War II, Latvia was re-occupied by Russia and then invaded by Germany from 1941-1944. When the Germans were forced to evacuate, as the Red Army advanced, the outspoken revolutionary war hero knew his life was in peril. With thousands of other Latvians, he and his wife and daughter fled the country, taking the hazardous journey across the Baltic Sea in an open boat to safety in Sweden.

In an unexpected twist of fate, a year later in 1945, an Irish government delegation headed up by CS (Todd) Andrews was sent to Sweden to investigate developing an Irish peat processing plant where they were surprised to meet Konrad, then heading up a similar Swedish facility. Konrad, an enthusiastic Hibernophile, regaled them with his stories of the Easter Rising and impressed them with his civil engineering skills and knowledge of peat manufacturing. So much so, that Andrews invited him to return to Ireland to head up a new production plant for Bord na Móna at Kilberry, Co Kildare. He accepted the role and was the facility manager there during the 1950s and 1960s. Sadly for Konrad, his beloved wife Helen died in 1959.

On retirement, Konrad travelled to Canada to live with his daughter who had married an Irish doctor, Dermot Murphy, returning with them to Ireland to live in Athy in the late 1970s. Konrad died in 1981, aged 93, still committed to his socialist ideals, having lived through several turbulent periods of European history.

We are not sure when, or how, Konrad acquired the egg. Was it a romantic Easter gift for his beloved wife Helen, or a christening present on the birth of their only daughter? We might never know. But this beautiful object was one of their most precious possessions. Now, any time I see the egg, I think about the man who chose it, and what it stands for.

For unlike a Fabergé Egg, this egg does not represent luxury, opulence, or wealth. This egg represents those traditional ideals of renewal and new life. This Easter, when people are once more fleeing for their lives across Europe – this time from war-torn Ukraine – I think of what this egg symbolises, and of Konrad Peterson, and all that he stood for: peace, liberty and freedom.

These are truly precious gifts, things that none of us in these troubled times should ever take for granted.

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