Vladimir Burtsev
Encyclopedia
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
periodicals. He became famous by exposing a great number of agents provocateurs
Agent provocateur
Traditionally, an agent provocateur is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act...
, notably Yevno Azef in 1908. Because of his own revolutionary activities and his harsh criticism of the imperial regime, including personal criticism of emperor Nicholas II
Nicholas II of Russia
Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official short title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until...
, he was imprisoned several times in various European countries. In the course of his life, Burtsev fought oppressive policies from Tsarism in Imperial Russia, followed by the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
s and later Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's National Socialism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
.
Early life (1862 - 1886)
Burtsev was born in Fort Perovsky (today Kyzylorda in KazakhstanKazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
) to a military family. In 1882 he was expelled from Saint Petersburg State University
Saint Petersburg State University
Saint Petersburg State University is a Russian federal state-owned higher education institution based in Saint Petersburg and one of the oldest and largest universities in Russia....
and in 1885 from Kazan State University for taking part in student disturbances. As a member of Narodnaya Volya, he was imprisoned for two years (for about a year in the Peter and Paul Fortress
Peter and Paul Fortress
The Peter and Paul Fortress is the original citadel of St. Petersburg, Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and built to Domenico Trezzini's designs from 1706-1740.-History:...
) and in 1886 exiled to the Irkutsk
Irkutsk
Irkutsk is a city and the administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, one of the largest cities in Siberia. Population: .-History:In 1652, Ivan Pokhabov built a zimovye near the site of Irkutsk for gold trading and for the collection of fur taxes from the Buryats. In 1661, Yakov Pokhabov...
region of Eastern Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
.
Exile and publications (1888 - 1914)
In 1888 Burtsev managed to escape from exile and emigrate to SwitzerlandSwitzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. In 1889 he co-founded magazine "Свободная Россия" (Free Russia) but it survived only three issues. "In 1890 . . . Burtsev, wanted by the czarist police, boarded a British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
boat bound from Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. When the ship found itself surrounded by Turkish
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
police vessels with Russians
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
on board, the captain refused their demand to hand over the fugitive, announcing: “This is English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
territory. And I am a gentleman
Gentleman
The term gentleman , in its original and strict signification, denoted a well-educated man of good family and distinction, analogous to the Latin generosus...
!”
In 1898 Burtsev was arrested by British police for advocating, in his magazine "Народоволец" (Narodnaya Volya Comrade), the assassination of Nicholas II. Burtsev was found guilty and sentenced to 18 months at hard labour. On his release he went on to publish it in Switzerland, resulting in his permanent ban from that country.
In London he published the two-volume book "За сто лет (1800-1896)" (For Hundred Years (1800–1896)). He founded and published six issues of "Былое" (The Past), a historical magazine. After the Russian Revolution of 1905
Russian Revolution of 1905
The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...
Burtsev briefly returned illegally to Russia and founded the Russian version of the "Былое" magazine. Upon his return to the West in 1907, Burtsev began publishing the magazine "Общее дело" (Common Cause) which was a continuation of the foreign edition of "Былое" beginning with the 7th issue.
By exposing numerous Tsarist agent provocateur
Agent provocateur
Traditionally, an agent provocateur is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act...
s such as Yevno Azef, Burtsev gained fame as a counterintelligence expert and became known as "the Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
of the Revolution".
World War I and the Bolsheviks (1914 - 1921)
At the outset of World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
in 1914 he repatriated, was arrested at the border and again exiled to Siberia. Amnestied
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
in 1915, he returned to Petrograd.
Burtsev strenuously opposed the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
s. In 1917 he accused Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
and his comrades of being agents of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. In his article Either Us or the Germans and Those with Them (Russian Freedom, July 7, 1917), he listed the major enemies of Russia:
- Bolsheviks, whose demagoguery puts their own goals above the interests of Russia
- Reactionary forces
- German agents and spies. The Bolsheviks are, and always have been, the agents of Wilhelm II.
On the day of the October revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, he was arrested on orders of Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
, which led some historians to count him as the first political prisoner
Political prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
in the USSR.
Despite their political differences and public disputes in the press, Maxim Gorky
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
pleaded for Burtsev's release and in February 1918 he was indeed freed and left Soviet Russia. Burtsev spent the rest of his life as an emigre, first in Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, then Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
and later in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. During the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
, he supported the White Movement
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
of Admiral Kolchak and General Anton Denikin.
His numerous attempts to bring all anti-Bolshevik forces together under one ideological umbrella did not succeed.
Later life and death (1921 - 1942)
In 1921 Burtsev co-founded and became chairman of the Russian National Committee.
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
and antisemitism. In 1934-1935 he was a witness in the Berne Trial, exposing the Okhrana's role in creating the infamous fraud The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fraudulent, antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for achieving global domination. It was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the twentieth century...
. In 1938 in Paris he published a book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: A Proven Forgery. Burtsev died in poverty in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1942 from a blood infection.
Publications
- Белый террор при Александре III (White Terror under Alexander III, 1890?)
- Историко-революционный альманах (Historical-Revolutionary Almanach)
- О войне (About War, 1916)
- Проклятие вам, большевики! Открытое письмо большевикам." (Condemnation on You, Bolsheviks! Open letter, Stockholm, 1918)
- В борьбе с большевиками и немцами. (Fighting with the Bolsheviks and Germans, Paris, 1919. Issue 1 of newspaper "Общее дело" (1917)
- Articles in the newspapers Будущее and Общее дело (1917).
- Борьба за свободную Россию: Из воспоминаний (1882–1924). Vol. I. - Berlin: Гамаюн, 1924. (Struggle for Free Russia. Memoirs)
- Юбилей предателей и убийц (1917–1927). (Jubilee of Traitors and Murderers)
- В защиту правды. Перестанут ли клеветать? Дело генерала П.П. Дьяконова. Дело полковника А.Н. Попова и полковника И.А. де Роберти. Заговор молчания. - Paris: Общее дело, 1931. (In Defense of the Truth. Will They Stop the Slander? The Case of Gen. Diakonov)
- Боритесь с ГПУ! - Paris: Общее дело, 1932. (Fight the GPU!)
- Браудо Александр Исаевич (1846–1924): Очерки и воспоминания. - Paris. (Braudo Alexander Isayevich)
- Кружок русско-еврейской интеллигенции в Париже, 1937. (one of authors). (Circle of Russian-Jewish Emigration in Paris)
- «Протоколы Сионских мудрецов» - доказанный подлог. - Paris, 1938 (The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Proven Forgery) (Republished by Слово, 1991).
- Преступления и наказания большевиков. По поводу 20-летнего юбилея предателей и убийц. – Paris: Дом книги, 1938. (Crimes and Punishments of the Bolsheviks. 20 Year Jubilee of Traitors and Murderers)
Editor and publisher
- «Былое» (The Past)
- «Общее дело» (1909–1910) (The Common Cause)
- «Будущее» (1911–1914) (The Future)
- «Общее дело», «Наше общее дело» (1918–1922, 1928–1933) (The Common Cause, Our Common Cause)
- «Борьба за Россию» (1926–1931) (The Struggle for Russia)
External links
- by Rita T. Kronenhitter, CIA HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM, RELEASE IN FULL, September 22, 1993.
- by Ben B. Fischer, History Staff Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA (declassified), 1997.
Bio at hrono.ru