Rodzianko, Mykhailo

Rodzianko, Mykhailo [Родзянко, Михайло; Rodzjanko, Myxajlo], b 21 February 1859 in Popasne, Novomoskovsk county, Katerynoslav gubernia, d 24 January 1924 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Large landowner and political leader. He was marshal of the nobility for Novomoskovsk county (1886–96), chairman of the executive of the Katerynoslav gubernia zemstvo (1900–6), member of the State Council (1906–7), deputy from the Katerynoslav region in the Third and Fourth State Dumas (1907–17), and president of the State Duma (1911–17). He was one of the leading members of the Octobrist party and was opposed to Ukrainian national aspirations. An advocate of a constitutional monarchy of the British type, he was associated with Russian antigovernment circles, which during the First World War tried to get rid of Grigorii Rasputin and prepared a ‘revolution from above.’ In March 1917 he chaired the Provisional Committee of the Duma members, which assumed supreme power from Nicholas II, but was blocked from any position in the Provisional Government that succeeded it. In 1920, serving for a short period in Anton Denikin’s Volunteer Army, he emigrated to Yugoslavia. His memoirs, Krushenie imperii, came out in 1924 and have appeared in several English editions as The Reign of Rasputin: An Empire’s Collapse.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]