The last gendarme chief who reformed the Okhrana and warned the Tsar about Rasputin
1915: he laid out before Nicholas II, in detail, Rasputin's drunkenness and his insults against the imperial family. The Tsar's only response was to dismiss him.
A hands-on noble official who rose from Imperial Guard officer to Moscow governor and then to chief of the empire's political police. As commander of the Gendarme Corps in 1913, he abolished most district Okhrana bureaus and banned secret agents in the army and schools. In 1915 he personally reported Rasputin's scandals to the Tsar and was dismissed; after the Revolution he served as a secret consultant to the OGPU, advising on Operation Trust. His vast memoirs remain a primary source on late imperial politics and the police system.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1891–1905Adjutant to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, Moscow Governor-General
- 1905.8–1905.11Moscow Vice-Governor
- 1905–1913Moscow Governor; promoted Major-General; civic and cultural projects
- 1913–1915Deputy Interior Minister & Gendarme Commander; Okhrana reforms
- 1915.8Dismissed after submitting Rasputin report to Nicholas II
- 1915–1917Western Front: 15th Siberian Rifle Div., 3rd Siberian Corps; Lt. General
- 1918–1921Arrested, imprisoned, 5-year sentence; released 1921
- 1920sSecret OGPU consultant; advised Operation Trust
Related historical events
- 1914–1918First World WarWestern Front division and corps commanderFrom 1915 to 1917, he commanded the 15th Siberian Division and 3rd Siberian Corps on the Western Front.
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeFormer gendarme chief executed in the Great TerrorArrested again in December 1937, he was sentenced by the Moscow Oblast NKVD troika and shot at Butovo in February 1938.
Imprisonment and work with Soviet security agencies after the Revolution
Arrested in 1918 on counterrevolutionary charges, Dzhunkovsky remained imprisoned until 1921. Richard Robbins’s biography says that he received a five-year sentence but avoided execution, with public petitions and his reputation for treating revolutionaries fairly contributing to his release. This is a later biographical account of his early arrest, imprisonment, and release. In the 1920s he advised Soviet security agencies and took part in work related to internal security. The Khronos biography specifically credits him with drafting regulations for the passport system. His direct involvement in the OGPU’s Operation Trust, however, should not be stated as established fact. Robbins discusses a possible role in the operation while noting the lack of documentary evidence. Trust was a Soviet intelligence penetration and deception operation targeting anti-Bolshevik émigré groups, so any connection to Dzhunkovsky should be limited to what can be documented.
Memoirs and execution in the Great Terror
Released in November 1921 by decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Dzhunkovsky registered the next year as a resident at his sister Evdokia's home in Moscow. For a time he worked as a church watchman and gave private French lessons while writing memoirs covering 1865 to 1917. In 1934 Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich bought the manuscript. The memoirs appeared in print only decades after his death.
On December 3, 1937, Dzhunkovsky, then a 72-year-old pensioner, was arrested again. On February 21, 1938, the troika of the NKVD administration for Moscow Oblast sentenced him to death. In the mass operations begun in August 1937, troikas passed sentence without the defendant present and without defence proceedings, and their verdicts could not be appealed. The victims' database of the Butovo memorial research centre records that he was shot on February 26 at the Butovo firing range outside Moscow. Other accounts, including the biography published by the Russian Presidential Library, state that he was shot on the day of the sentence.
On January 16, 1989, a decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR posthumously rehabilitated him.