Vasilii Shulgin

Shul’gin, Vasilii Vital’evich

 

Born Jan. 1 (13), 1878, in Kiev; died Feb. 15, 1976, in Vladimir. Russian political figure; a leader of the nationalists; publicist.

The son of a dvorianin (nobleman) of Volyn’ Province, Shul’-gin graduated from the faculty of law at the University of Kiev in 1900. He contributed to the Russian nationalist newspaper Kievlianin, but in 1912 and 1913 he severed ties with the nationalists as a result of the Beilis case. Shul’gin was held under arrest for three months because of articles he had written in defense of M. Beilis.

During the February Revolution of 1917, Shul’gin served on the Provisional Committee of the State Duma. In Pskov on Mar. 2, 1917, he and A. I. Guchkov presented Nicholas II with the Duma’s demand that the tsar abdicate. After the October Revolution of 1917, Shul’gin was one of the organizers of the struggle against Soviet power, and he helped create the Volunteer Army. He emigrated after the Civil War ended but made illegal trips to the USSR in 1925 and 1926.

Shul’gin was the author of the books Days (1925), The Year 1920 (1927), and Three Capitals (1927). In the 1930’s he moved to Yugoslavia, and in 1937 he gave up political activity. In 1944 he was arrested in Yugoslavia and extradited to the USSR, where he was tried and sentenced to imprisonment; in 1956 he was released.

In the early 1960’s, Shul’gin wrote two open letters to Russian emigres in which he called on them to renounce their hostile attitude toward Soviet power.

WORKS

Pis’ma k russkim emigrantam. Moscow, 1961.