Protopopov, Aleksandr Dmitreyevich

Protopopov, Aleksandr Dmitreyevich

(əlyĭksän`dər dəmē`trēyəvĭch prətəpô`pəf), 1866–1918, Russian public official. Long active in zemstvozemstvo
[Rus., from zemlya=land], local assembly that functioned as a body of provincial self-government in Russia from 1864 to 1917. The introduction of the zemstvo system was one of the major liberal reforms in the reign of Alexander II.
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 affairs, and a member of the Octobrist party, which favored a constitutional monarchy, he served in the third and fourth Dumas and was vice president of the Duma from 1914. His friendship with RasputinRasputin, Grigori Yefimovich
, 1869–1916, Russian holy man and courtier, a notorious figure at the court of Czar Nicholas II. He was a semiliterate peasant and debauchee who preached and practiced a doctrine of salvation that mixed religious fervor with sexual indulgence.
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, however, brought his appointment (Sept., 1916) as minister of the interior. Although Protopopov became nearly insane, the czarina blocked all efforts to have him removed. When the February Revolution of 1917 overthrew the government, he was arrested by the provisional government and was later shot.