Avar religious leader and mufti of the North Caucasus who led anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Dagestan and Chechnya in 1918–1925
Born in 1859 to an aristocratic Avar landowning family in the village of Gotsob in Dagestan, he was an Islamic scholar. In May 1917 the congress of the Union of Highlanders of the North Caucasus made him mufti of the North Caucasus, and in August he was proclaimed Imam of Dagestan and Chechnya but gave up the title three days later. He fought the Bolsheviks in 1918, and in 1919 he collaborated with Denikin’s Volunteer Army as a lesser evil than the communists. In September 1920 he raised and led the Dagestan uprising, which was put down in May 1921. Moving to Chechnya to prepare another rising, he was arrested in September 1925 and shot that October.
Career timeline
- 1895–1903Naib of Koisubu, Avar District
- 1917Mufti of the North Caucasus
- 1917Proclaimed Imam of Dagestan and Chechnya; gave up the title three days later
- 1920–1921Led the Dagestan uprising
- 1924–1925Insurgency in Chechnya
- 1925Arrested; executed in Rostov-on-Don
Pastor and writer who headed Latvia's pro-German government of 1919
"Not clever speeches or treaties but force decides a nation's fate," he declared at his 1924 treason trial.
A leading Latvian novelist and Lutheran pastor, he headed the pro-German government backed by von der Goltz after the Liepāja coup of 1919. His regime fell after Cēsis, he fled to Germany and, returning in 1924, was tried for treason and expelled.
Career timeline
- 1890–1899Studied theology at the University of Dorpat (Tartu)
- 1903–1906Edited and published the journal Austrums in Cēsis
- 1906–1918Lutheran pastor in the Matīši, Kalsnava and Vietalva parishes
- 1917Co-founded the Latvian Farmers' Union, member of its board
- 1919.05–06Prime Minister of the pro-German provisional government
- 1924Convicted of treason, then expelled by presidential pardon
- 1926–1930Pastor of a German congregation in Altstadt, East Prussia
Greek Catholic priest who became president of Carpatho-Ukraine when it declared independence in March 1939
The son of a Greek Catholic priest in Carpathian Ruthenia, then part of Austria-Hungary, he studied at the Ungvár school of theology and at Budapest University and was ordained. In 1918 he became head of the Subcarpathian National Council, which in 1919 asked for the region to join Czechoslovakia. In 1925 he was elected to the parliament in Prague as leader of the Ruthenian National Christian Party, and in October 1938 he was appointed head of the government of the Subcarpathian Autonomous Region. On 15 March 1939 he became president of Carpatho-Ukraine, but the next day Hungary occupied and annexed the region; he fled to Prague and spent the war as a professor at the Ukrainian Free University. Arrested by the NKVD when the Soviet army took Prague in May 1945, he was taken to Moscow and died in Butyrka prison in July.
Career timeline
- 1900–1917Professor of mathematics, teachers’ institute
- 1918–1919Head, Subcarpathian National Council
- 1925Deputy in Prague (Ruthenian National Christian Party)
- 1938–1939Head of the Subcarpathian autonomous government
- 1939President of Carpatho-Ukraine
- 1939–1945Professor, Ukrainian Free University, Prague
- 1945Arrested by the NKVD; died in Butyrka prison
Benedictine cardinal who led the Hungarian Catholic Church as Archbishop of Esztergom and Prince Primate in 1927–1945
Born Szapucsek György into a roofer’s family of Slovak origin at Deáki, now in Slovakia, he joined the Benedictines at Pannonhalma in 1901 and was ordained in 1908. In 1927 Pius XI appointed him Archbishop of Esztergom and made him a cardinal, and as Prince Primate he sat in the upper house of parliament in his own right. After the German invasion of Poland in 1939 he organised Church aid for the Polish refugees in Hungary. In spring 1944 he sought to have Catholic converts exempted from deportation but won the exemption only for priests, monks and nuns; he made no public condemnation of the deportations and on 29 June decided against issuing a pastoral letter. He regarded Szálasi’s inauguration as “Leader of the Nation” as illegal and refused to attend his oath-taking, and died in an air-raid shelter in Esztergom in March 1945.
Career timeline
- 1901Joined the Benedictines at Pannonhalma
- 1908Ordained priest
- 1910s–1927Professor at Sant’Anselmo, Rome; procurator general of the order
- 1927–1945Archbishop of Esztergom, Prince Primate, cardinal
- 1944Sought exemption for converts; decided against a pastoral letter
First head of the Crimean People’s Republic, the first elected mufti of Crimea and the poet of the Crimean Tatar anthem
Born in 1885 in the village of Büyük Sonaq near Dzhankoy, the son of an imam, he went to Istanbul in 1908 to study law and theology, founded the Young Tatar Writers’ Association and the secret organisation Vatan (Homeland), and returned to Crimea in 1912. In March 1917 he became chairman of the Crimean Muslim Executive Committee and the first mufti of Crimea elected by delegates rather than appointed by the Minister of the Interior. Arrested in June for anti-government agitation, he was freed after a protest bearing 5,000 signatures. He prepared the Qurultay and in December became chairman and director of justice of the Directory of the Crimean People’s Republic, but was arrested by the Bolsheviks in January 1918 and killed without trial by sailors in Sevastopol on 23 February. His poem “Ant etkenmen” became the Crimean Tatar national anthem.
Career timeline
- 1908–1912Studied law and theology in Istanbul; co-founded Vatan
- 1913Law faculty of the Psychoneurological Institute, St Petersburg
- 1917Chairman of the Crimean Muslim Executive Committee; mufti of Crimea
- 1917–1918Chairman and director of justice of the Directory of the Crimean People’s Republic
Archbishop of Esztergom and cardinal sentenced to life in a 1949 show trial, who sheltered in the US embassy in Budapest from 1956
Born at Csehimindszent in Vas County into a family with a German surname, he was ordained in 1915 and in 1919 was arrested by the Károlyi and then the Kun government. He later took the name Mindszenty from his home village. Consecrated Bishop of Veszprém in March 1944, he was arrested by the Arrow Cross government in November and released in April 1945. Appointed Archbishop of Esztergom and Primate in 1945 and made a cardinal in 1946, he resisted the Communists, notably over church schools. Arrested in December 1948 and beaten until he confessed, he was sentenced to life imprisonment at a show trial in February 1949. Freed during the 1956 revolution, he took refuge in the US embassy when the Soviets invaded and stayed there fifteen years. Allowed to leave in 1971, he settled in Vienna; in February 1974 Paul VI declared the see of Esztergom vacant, and he died in Vienna in 1975.
Career timeline
- 1915Ordained priest
- 1919Arrested by the Károlyi and Béla Kun governments
- 1944Bishop of Veszprém; arrested by the Arrow Cross government in November
- 1945–1974Archbishop of Esztergom, Primate of Hungary
- 1946Made a cardinal
- 1948–1949Arrested; sentenced to life at a show trial
- 1956–1971Freed in the revolution; refuge in the US embassy in Budapest
- 1971–1975Exile in Vienna
