The Duma monarchist who took the tsar's abdication and became an ideologue of the White movement
At the tsar's train in Pskov, Shulgin — unwashed and unshaven for four days — appeared before Nicholas II in a dirty jacket. A member of the suite told him: 'We will not forget this little jacket of yours.'
Vasily Shulgin was a leading conservative politician in the late Russian Empire, a deputy in the II, III, and IV State Dumas and editor of Kievlyanin, who championed Russian nationalism and constitutional monarchy. In March 1917 he traveled to Pskov with Alexander Guchkov and personally received Nicholas II's abdication, but could not avert the revolutionary catastrophe. During the Civil War he served as an ideologue of the White movement, then emigrated to Yugoslavia; in 1944 he was arrested by Soviet forces and spent 12 years in Vladimir Central Prison. Amnestied in 1956, he remained in the USSR, wrote memoirs, and appeared in the 1965 documentary The Verdict of History, a living witness to the old order who was defeated but never submitted.
Career Timeline
- 1907–1917Deputy, II, III, IV State Dumas (Volhynia)
- 1913–1917Editor, Kievlyanin newspaper
- 1915Co-founder, Progressive Bloc; led Progressive Nationalists
- 1917.3With Guchkov, received Nicholas II's abdication in Pskov
- 1918–1920White movement propagandist and ideologue; editor of Rossiya and Velikaya Rossiya
- 1920–1944Exile in Yugoslavia; wrote memoirs Dni and Three Capitals
- 1947–1956Sentenced to 25 years; served 12 in Vladimir Central Prison
- 1956–1976Amnestied; lived in Vladimir, wrote Lenin's Experiment, starred in The Verdict of History