Sudzilovskii, Nikolai

(also Russel’). Born Dec. 3 (15), 1850, in Mogilev; died Apr. 30, 1930, in Tientsin, China. Russian revolutionary, Narodnik (Populist), activist in the international revolutionary movement, scholar, and natural scientist.

Born of a noble family, Sudzilovskii studied at the University of St. Petersburg (from 1868) and the University of Kiev (from 1869). He was one of the organizers of the Kiev Commune (1873–74) and was active in the “going to the people” movement. He emigrated in 1875, and in 1877 he graduated from the University of Bucharest.

Under the name of Russel’, Sudzilovskii participated in preparations for the April Uprising of the Bulgarians against the Turkish yoke in 1876. In 1880 he helped organize the Rumanian socialist movement. He contributed to the foreign edition of P. L. Lavrov’s Vpered! (Forward!) and helped bring into Russia the writings of members of the Liberation of Labor group.

In 1887, Sudzilovskii took up residence in San Francisco, where he became an American citizen. In 1892 he was in Hawaii, where he organized the native Kanakas into an independent party that fought for home rule and against American colonialist oppression. In 1900, under the name of Kauka Lukini (“Russian doctor” in the Kanaka language), Sudzilovskii was elected to the Hawaiian senate and became its president; as such, he sought to carry out radical democratic reforms.

During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, Sudzilovskii spread revolutionary propaganda among Russian prisoners of war in Japan. By request of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the US government deprived Sudzilovskii of his American citizenship. He spent his last years in the Philippines and in China, receiving a special pension from the All-Union Society of Political Prisoners. He contributed to the journal Katorga i ssylka (Hard Labor and Exile). Sudzilovskii’s writings include works on medicine, the natural sciences, and sociology. He was also a member of the American Genetic Association.