Durnovo, Petr Nikolaevich

Born in 1845 in Moscow Province; died Sept. 11 (24), 1915, in Petrograd. Russian statesman, a reactionary.

In 1872, upon graduation from an academy of military law, Durnovo served in a department of the Ministry of Justice. He moved to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 1881. Durnovo headed the Department of Police from 1884 to 1893. He became a senator in 1893 and deputy minister in 1900; he was minister of internal affairs from October 1905 to April 1906 in the cabinet of S. Iu. Witte. He used extremely harsh repressive measures in the struggle against the Revolution of 1905-07. In 1906 he was sentenced to death by the Socialist Revolutionaries, but they did not succeed in carrying out the sentence. Durnovo became a member of the State Council in 1906. He took a pro-German stand in international questions.