BIO OVERVIEW
This is Dmitri's extended character bio. As such, it concerns mostly events from his past and present, and does not dwell upon the happenings of The Grand Budapest Hotel too much (though, obviously, it does cite them). However, the original additions in the information below (meaning, whatever did not occur in the film) obviously only apply to my RP version of Dmitri, and not to the character in his canonical incarnation. So, keep that in mind.
EARLY LIFE
Dmitri was born on November 22, 1891, in the town of Lutz, a cosmopolitan city in the country of Zubrowka (a Central European country, similar in scenery to Eastern Germany). He was born (legally) the last child and sole male heir to Count Friedrich Desgoffe-und-Taxis and Countess Céline Villeneuve Desgoffe-und-Taxis, preceded by three elder sisters (Marguerite, Laetizia, and Carolina Desgoffe-und-Taxis).
Despite being born to vast wealth and a prestigious family name (the Desgoffe-und-Taxis were among the most powerful families in Europe, holding the largest fortune in the continent), Dmitri's early childhood left much to be desired. His father, Count Friedrich Desgoffe-und-Taxis, succumbed to the Prussian Grippe before Dmitri was born —thus, Dmitri never knew him. His mother, Madame Céline Desgoffe-und-Taxis, was of domineering character, taking over her late husband's estate and retaining control over its holdings until the moment of her death. In addition, however, she was emotionally distant (preferring to spend her free time with much-younger lovers, leaving her own children in the care of servants) and a ruthless disciplinarian. She was unafraid to discipline her children with a firm hand, and when that did not suffice, she used a pine switch. Dmitri still bears the scars from such incidents, most of which are concealed by clothing, but a number can be observed lining his hands.
Additionally, the kind of men Madame D. invited into her home were not always the best sort of people to have around children, but being the selfish woman she was, she did not care much about the welfare of any of her children. Insofar as it concerns [my] Dmitri: he was raped at the age of six by one of his mother's lovers, one M. Gilbert Herbert, who was a concierge (which explains his hatred both for concierges and for homosexual men, at least as far as my RP version goes--canonically, who the fuck knows).
In his early life, Dmitri's relationship with his three sisters was notably stormy, at least on his sisters' side of the equation. Being about a decade his elders and largely cut out of the family's inheritance via Dmitri's birth, the three sisters highly resented little Dmitri and made no small show of it, mainly by shunning him whenever he tried to engage with them and generally being petty. However, moments of clarity do exist in the sibling relationship, for example: Carolina taught Dmitri how to ride a horse, though he was never as accomplished a rider as she, and Marguerite would fetch leftover food from the kitchen to give to Dmitri whenever his mother would lock him in the cupboard, so he wouldn't go hungry.
The sweetest (albeit short-lived) component of Dmitri's childhood was probably his relationship (a substitute mother-son relationship) with one particular servant in the Desgoffe-und-Taxis household, a caretaker named Amélie who treated Dmitri as if he were her own child, reading to him and showing him all the tenderness his mother did not. She encouraged his love for music (she taught him how to play the triangle, and would watch him practice the violin--a skill he has fostered since the age of five).
Amélie was, however, dismissed from service at the Desgoffe-und-Taxis household shortly after Dmitri entered boarding school (at the behest of one of Mme. D's latter husbands). Dmitri would spend most of his early childhood and adolescence at the boarding school, only making visits to the Desgoffe-und-Taxis estate during the summer and holidays.
Despite being born to vast wealth and a prestigious family name (the Desgoffe-und-Taxis were among the most powerful families in Europe, holding the largest fortune in the continent), Dmitri's early childhood left much to be desired. His father, Count Friedrich Desgoffe-und-Taxis, succumbed to the Prussian Grippe before Dmitri was born —thus, Dmitri never knew him. His mother, Madame Céline Desgoffe-und-Taxis, was of domineering character, taking over her late husband's estate and retaining control over its holdings until the moment of her death. In addition, however, she was emotionally distant (preferring to spend her free time with much-younger lovers, leaving her own children in the care of servants) and a ruthless disciplinarian. She was unafraid to discipline her children with a firm hand, and when that did not suffice, she used a pine switch. Dmitri still bears the scars from such incidents, most of which are concealed by clothing, but a number can be observed lining his hands.
Additionally, the kind of men Madame D. invited into her home were not always the best sort of people to have around children, but being the selfish woman she was, she did not care much about the welfare of any of her children. Insofar as it concerns [my] Dmitri: he was raped at the age of six by one of his mother's lovers, one M. Gilbert Herbert, who was a concierge (which explains his hatred both for concierges and for homosexual men, at least as far as my RP version goes--canonically, who the fuck knows).
In his early life, Dmitri's relationship with his three sisters was notably stormy, at least on his sisters' side of the equation. Being about a decade his elders and largely cut out of the family's inheritance via Dmitri's birth, the three sisters highly resented little Dmitri and made no small show of it, mainly by shunning him whenever he tried to engage with them and generally being petty. However, moments of clarity do exist in the sibling relationship, for example: Carolina taught Dmitri how to ride a horse, though he was never as accomplished a rider as she, and Marguerite would fetch leftover food from the kitchen to give to Dmitri whenever his mother would lock him in the cupboard, so he wouldn't go hungry.
The sweetest (albeit short-lived) component of Dmitri's childhood was probably his relationship (a substitute mother-son relationship) with one particular servant in the Desgoffe-und-Taxis household, a caretaker named Amélie who treated Dmitri as if he were her own child, reading to him and showing him all the tenderness his mother did not. She encouraged his love for music (she taught him how to play the triangle, and would watch him practice the violin--a skill he has fostered since the age of five).
Amélie was, however, dismissed from service at the Desgoffe-und-Taxis household shortly after Dmitri entered boarding school (at the behest of one of Mme. D's latter husbands). Dmitri would spend most of his early childhood and adolescence at the boarding school, only making visits to the Desgoffe-und-Taxis estate during the summer and holidays.
YOUTH
After finishing his studies at the boarding school in Lutz, Dmitri returned to living full-time at the Desgoffe-und-Taxis estate for a few months, feeling the same oppression he had felt when he was a young child. This pattern continued until Mme. D extended a marriage proposal on his (unbeknownst) behalf to the (rather unseemly) daughter of a wealthy wine merchant, much to Dmitri's distaste. Naturally, Dmitri wanted no part in the business merger masquerading as marriage, refusing his mother's deal with the wealthy merchant even at the cost of furthering his studies (Mme. D suggested it was a way for Dmitri to acquire money to go to university with, being unwilling to pay the sum using his late father's wealth, and having used what allowances he had made for Dmitri's personal use for sending him to boarding school). Mme. D was outraged by his rebellion, and was determined to have her way. Dmitri, recognizing his own powerlessness in the situation, decided to leave the mansion altogether, taking only a few of his father's valuables along with several suitcases, ushered out of the household by a portion of rather sympathetic staff.
Dmitri traveled by train to the little town of Kunstbruck, just along the outskirts of Lutz, where he subsisted by renting rooms at little inns for a while, before finally settling in an apartment of his own. During this time, Dmitri ventured out in hopes of finding his old caretaker, Amélie, with whom he had lost contact (but whom he'd never forgotten), only to find she had been brutally murdered many years prior to his inquiry (this information relayed unto Dmitri by her son). This revelation sent Dmitri into the first of several major periods of despair, and was his introduction to the world of alcohol. He spent several months as a drunken, disheveled youth, wandering the streets of Kunstbruck, until a hazy drunken visage of Amélie (entirely imagined by him) expressed he should try to live his life as best he could.
After having this vision, Dmitri left Kunstbruck and moved further west, reaching a small town along Gabelmeister's Peak, and settling there. He soon found work at a small bookstore called Schoenhof's (you will recognize this as a real-life foreign book shop, I got the inspiration for that name after finding one of their cards in a used book). Shortly thereafter, he met his first fiancee, Annabelle Litz, whilst on a morning walk one summer morning. Annabelle would later encourage him to enroll at Akademie Zubrowka, where he majored in music studies, excelling in literature and the arts, as well as being the school's fencing team captain.
Three years later, Dmitri proposed to Annabelle (on November 2, 1913) at the observatory near Gabelmeister's Peak. She accepted his marriage proposal and became his fiancee. Tragedy, however, struck shortly after, as Annabelle died after contracting murine typhus from stray cats she took in and nurtured (during the summer of 1914, described by some as the best summer in human memory--though notably not for Dmitri). Dmitri was permanently traumatized by her death, having lived the happiest moments of his life up until this point in Annabelle's company, and having relied on her in taking the steps to turn his life around. He suffered another emotional breakdown shortly thereafter, deciding to abruptly end his schooling and go to war in the autumn of 1914, mostly intent on embarking upon a suicide mission, and not for any patriotic sentiment he felt for Zubrowka or sympathy for its alliances with the Germans and the Austrians.
As a man of aristocratic lineage, however, Dmitri saw very little conflict, inheriting his father's post as a brigadier and being put in charge of training troops instead. He was mediocre at the job, but the family name and tradition kept him there all the same.
Dmitri traveled by train to the little town of Kunstbruck, just along the outskirts of Lutz, where he subsisted by renting rooms at little inns for a while, before finally settling in an apartment of his own. During this time, Dmitri ventured out in hopes of finding his old caretaker, Amélie, with whom he had lost contact (but whom he'd never forgotten), only to find she had been brutally murdered many years prior to his inquiry (this information relayed unto Dmitri by her son). This revelation sent Dmitri into the first of several major periods of despair, and was his introduction to the world of alcohol. He spent several months as a drunken, disheveled youth, wandering the streets of Kunstbruck, until a hazy drunken visage of Amélie (entirely imagined by him) expressed he should try to live his life as best he could.
After having this vision, Dmitri left Kunstbruck and moved further west, reaching a small town along Gabelmeister's Peak, and settling there. He soon found work at a small bookstore called Schoenhof's (you will recognize this as a real-life foreign book shop, I got the inspiration for that name after finding one of their cards in a used book). Shortly thereafter, he met his first fiancee, Annabelle Litz, whilst on a morning walk one summer morning. Annabelle would later encourage him to enroll at Akademie Zubrowka, where he majored in music studies, excelling in literature and the arts, as well as being the school's fencing team captain.
Three years later, Dmitri proposed to Annabelle (on November 2, 1913) at the observatory near Gabelmeister's Peak. She accepted his marriage proposal and became his fiancee. Tragedy, however, struck shortly after, as Annabelle died after contracting murine typhus from stray cats she took in and nurtured (during the summer of 1914, described by some as the best summer in human memory--though notably not for Dmitri). Dmitri was permanently traumatized by her death, having lived the happiest moments of his life up until this point in Annabelle's company, and having relied on her in taking the steps to turn his life around. He suffered another emotional breakdown shortly thereafter, deciding to abruptly end his schooling and go to war in the autumn of 1914, mostly intent on embarking upon a suicide mission, and not for any patriotic sentiment he felt for Zubrowka or sympathy for its alliances with the Germans and the Austrians.
As a man of aristocratic lineage, however, Dmitri saw very little conflict, inheriting his father's post as a brigadier and being put in charge of training troops instead. He was mediocre at the job, but the family name and tradition kept him there all the same.
ADULTHOOD
During the war, Dmitri learned to repress a lot of his emotional turmoil (something he always had a tendency to do, but being relied upon to command and train troops caused him to burrow his feelings even more, thus never having properly mourned and gotten over Annabelle's death), a pattern which remains to this day.
After the war, Dmitri returned to Lutz, keeping the formal post of brigadier and basically performed administrative work for the Zubrowkan military for about a decade during its peacetime, living in a more refined apartment than his prior quarters in Kunstbruck and along Gabelmeister's Peak. It was at this point that his military career was properly launched, and his previous hopes of becoming an accomplished violinist were duly and forever abandoned in favour of taking up his father's line of work (though the Desgoffe-und-Taxis family was traditionally mercantile, his father nonetheless led an illustrious military career).
At this period in history, Zubrowka saw much political turmoil, with the monarchy's authority being constantly challenged after the disastrous losses the war had brought on, and extremist political ideals and organizations began to rise throughout the country, much in the same manner as throughout the rest of post-WWI Europe. One such organization was the Zig-Zag division, a fascist paramilitary organization bent on revolutionizing Zubrowka and taking control of the falling empire in order to restore what they felt was its "former glory." Many aristocrats, threatened by the class tension the post-war economic hit brought on as well as the monarchy's decline in efficiency and the aristocracy's increasingly flimsy influence in political affairs (which were strenuous at this time), flocked to organizations such as the Zig-Zag division as a reactionary measure against Marxist/Communist lines of thought, which were also gaining momentum (especially after the success of the Russian Revolution of 1918, which saw the end of the Romanov-led monarchy in Russia).
Dmitri was quick to join the Zig-Zag division, earning the rank of brigadier (much as his formal military position), and holding much control over Zig-Zag division affairs (in 1930s Zubrowka), using his position within the organization to gain favours from others with promises of granting them entry within the ranks (indeed, this was one of the ways in which he compensated hired gun, J.G. Jopling, for his services). It was at this time, in the winter of Dmitri's malcontent, that he decided (being assured he had some degree of power, now) to take the inheritance he saw as rightfully his back from his mother, as well as exert revenge over the past wrongs she had committed against him throughout much of his life. Thus, the plot to assassinate Madame D. was born. To complete this task, Dmitri hired the help of private inquiry agent J.G. Jopling, and proceeded to kill his mother via strychnine poisoning.
As stated in Madame D's original will, Dmitri was set to inherit the bulk of her estate, with special allowances allotted to his three elder sisters, as read by Deputy Vilmos Kovacs. However, unbeknownst to Dmitri, an amendment to the will existed, in which Mme. D's lover, hotel concierge M. Gustave H, was to inherit a priceless renaissance painting known as "Boy With Apple," by Johannes van Hoytl the Younger. Despite Dmitri having Gustave framed for Mme. D's murder (and subsequently arrested), the hotel concierge and his lobby boy sidekick (Zero Moustafa) managed to steal the painting from him, and an important secret Second Copy of the Second Will (Mme. D's) to be executed in the event of her death by murder was tucked into the back of the picture by Dmitri's butler (and sole witness to the murder), Serge X. It was the execution of this Second Copy that saw Dmitri losing a vast array of his fortune (though, suffice it to say, not all of it--he still lives comfortably well, having laundered large quantities of the money along with many valuables into foreign banks during the brief time he had complete control of his mother's estate). Dmitri was subsequently arrested and tried for the murder of his mother (along with the murders he had his hired hand perform to cover up his tracks), but he managed to escape out of Zubrowka (and, eventually, Europe altogether) during his sworn enemy M. Gustave H's deposition (his sisters posted his bail money, and Dmitri didn't stick around long enough to see the trial take place).
After the war, Dmitri returned to Lutz, keeping the formal post of brigadier and basically performed administrative work for the Zubrowkan military for about a decade during its peacetime, living in a more refined apartment than his prior quarters in Kunstbruck and along Gabelmeister's Peak. It was at this point that his military career was properly launched, and his previous hopes of becoming an accomplished violinist were duly and forever abandoned in favour of taking up his father's line of work (though the Desgoffe-und-Taxis family was traditionally mercantile, his father nonetheless led an illustrious military career).
At this period in history, Zubrowka saw much political turmoil, with the monarchy's authority being constantly challenged after the disastrous losses the war had brought on, and extremist political ideals and organizations began to rise throughout the country, much in the same manner as throughout the rest of post-WWI Europe. One such organization was the Zig-Zag division, a fascist paramilitary organization bent on revolutionizing Zubrowka and taking control of the falling empire in order to restore what they felt was its "former glory." Many aristocrats, threatened by the class tension the post-war economic hit brought on as well as the monarchy's decline in efficiency and the aristocracy's increasingly flimsy influence in political affairs (which were strenuous at this time), flocked to organizations such as the Zig-Zag division as a reactionary measure against Marxist/Communist lines of thought, which were also gaining momentum (especially after the success of the Russian Revolution of 1918, which saw the end of the Romanov-led monarchy in Russia).
Dmitri was quick to join the Zig-Zag division, earning the rank of brigadier (much as his formal military position), and holding much control over Zig-Zag division affairs (in 1930s Zubrowka), using his position within the organization to gain favours from others with promises of granting them entry within the ranks (indeed, this was one of the ways in which he compensated hired gun, J.G. Jopling, for his services). It was at this time, in the winter of Dmitri's malcontent, that he decided (being assured he had some degree of power, now) to take the inheritance he saw as rightfully his back from his mother, as well as exert revenge over the past wrongs she had committed against him throughout much of his life. Thus, the plot to assassinate Madame D. was born. To complete this task, Dmitri hired the help of private inquiry agent J.G. Jopling, and proceeded to kill his mother via strychnine poisoning.
As stated in Madame D's original will, Dmitri was set to inherit the bulk of her estate, with special allowances allotted to his three elder sisters, as read by Deputy Vilmos Kovacs. However, unbeknownst to Dmitri, an amendment to the will existed, in which Mme. D's lover, hotel concierge M. Gustave H, was to inherit a priceless renaissance painting known as "Boy With Apple," by Johannes van Hoytl the Younger. Despite Dmitri having Gustave framed for Mme. D's murder (and subsequently arrested), the hotel concierge and his lobby boy sidekick (Zero Moustafa) managed to steal the painting from him, and an important secret Second Copy of the Second Will (Mme. D's) to be executed in the event of her death by murder was tucked into the back of the picture by Dmitri's butler (and sole witness to the murder), Serge X. It was the execution of this Second Copy that saw Dmitri losing a vast array of his fortune (though, suffice it to say, not all of it--he still lives comfortably well, having laundered large quantities of the money along with many valuables into foreign banks during the brief time he had complete control of his mother's estate). Dmitri was subsequently arrested and tried for the murder of his mother (along with the murders he had his hired hand perform to cover up his tracks), but he managed to escape out of Zubrowka (and, eventually, Europe altogether) during his sworn enemy M. Gustave H's deposition (his sisters posted his bail money, and Dmitri didn't stick around long enough to see the trial take place).
LIFE IN THE NEW WORLD
Immediately following his arrest and subsequent trial, Dmitri fled from Zubrowka, and eventually Europe altogether, deciding to seek refuge in New York City. This is where he currently resides (caveat: unless your RP character is from another part of the world, in which case Dmitri can be found 'visiting' said part, but as far as my RP goes, he lives in New York City).
CURRENT LIFE
Currently, Dmitri finds himself traveling to many places throughout the world, from the sunny shores of the Maltese Riviera to New York City (his chief place of residence), England, and France, among others (if your character inhabits a different area of the world or time period, Dmitri can exist there also--I am very versatile with my RPs, as I like to explore as much of him as possible). He finds himself back in his hometown, Lutz, coming across past known faces, among them M. Gustave H., Zero Moustafa, and Agatha.