Lavr Georgiyevich Kornilov (russian: Лавр Гео́ргиевич Корни́лов, ; – 13 April 1918) was a
Russian military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a ...
officer, explorer, and general in the
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Ar ...
during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
and the ensuing
Russian Civil War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Russian Civil War
, partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I
, image =
, caption = Clockwise from top left:
{{flatlist,
*Soldiers ...
. Kornilov was of
Siberian Cossack origin. Today he is best remembered for the
Kornilov Affair, an unsuccessful endeavor in August/September 1917 that was intended to strengthen
Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, ; original spelling: ( – 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months from late July to early Novem ...
's
Provisional Government
A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, or a transitional government, is an emergency governmental authority set up to manage a political transition generally in the cases of a newly formed state or ...
, but which led to Kerensky eventually having Kornilov arrested and charged with attempting a
coup d'état
A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
, and ultimately undermined Kerensky's rule.
Kornilov escaped from jail in November 1917 and subsequently became the military commander of the anti-Bolshevik
Volunteer Army which took the charge of anti-Bolshevik opposition in the south of Russia. He and his troops were badly outnumbered in many of their encounters, and he was killed by a shell on 13 April 1918 while laying siege to
Ekaterinodar, the capital of the
Kuban Soviet Republic.
Pre-revolutionary career
One story relates how Kornilov was originally born as a Don Cossack
Kalmyk named Lorya Dildinov and adopted in
Ust-Kamenogorsk,
Russian Turkestan (now
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
) by the family of his mother's brother, the
Russian Cossack Khorunzhiy Georgy Nikolayevich Kornilov, whose wife was of
Kazakh origin. But his sister wrote that he had not been adopted, had not been a Don Cossack, and that their mother had
Polish and
Altai Oirot descent. (Though their language was not a Kalmyk/Mongolian one, but because of their Asian race and their history in the Jungar Oirot (Kalmyk) state, Altai Oirots were called Altai Kalmyks by Russians. They were not Muslims or Kazakhs.) But
Boris Shaposhnikov
, birth_name = Boris Mikhailovitch Shaposhnikov
, birth_date =
, death_date =
, birth_place = Zlatoust, Ufa Governorate Russian Empire
, death_place = Moscow, Soviet Union
, placeofburial = Kremlin Wall Necropolis
, place ...
, who served with Pyotr Kornilov, the brother of Lavr, in 1903, mentioned the "Kyrgyz" ancestry of their mother - this name was usually used in reference to Kazakhs in 1903. Kornilov's
Siberian Cossack father was a friend of
Potanin (1835-1920), a prominent figure in the Siberian autonomy movement.
Kornilov entered military school in
Omsk in 1885 and went on to study at the
Mikhailovsky Artillery School in
St. Petersburg in 1889. In August 1892 he was assigned as a lieutenant to the
Turkestan Military District, where he led several exploration missions in
Eastern Turkestan,
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
and
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, learned several Central Asian languages, and wrote detailed reports about his observations.
Kornilov returned to St. Petersburg to attend the
Nikolayev General Staff Academy and graduated as a captain in 1897. Again refusing a posting at St. Peterburg, he returned to the Turkestan Military District, where he resumed his duties as a military intelligence officer. Among his missions at this post was an attempt at traveling incognito to
British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
in 1904, though he was quickly discovered and subsequently kept under close surveillance.
During the
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...
of 1904-1905 Kornilov became the
Chief of staff
The title chief of staff (or head of staff) identifies the leader of a complex organization such as the armed forces, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a principal staff officer (PSO), who is the coordinator of the supporti ...
of the 1st Infantry Brigade, and was heavily involved in the
Battle of Sandepu (January 1905) and the
Battle of Mukden (February/March 1905). He was awarded the
Order of St. George (4th class) for bravery and promoted to the rank of
colonel
Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations.
In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge ...
.
Following the end of the war, Kornilov served as
military attache in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
from 1907 to 1911. He studied the
Chinese language
Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the ...
, travelled extensively (researching data on the history, traditions and customs of the Chinese, which he intended to use as material for a book about life in contemporary China), and regularly sent detailed reports to the General Staff and Foreign Ministry. Kornilov paid much attention to the prospects of cooperation between Russia and China in the Far East and met with the future president of China,
Chiang Kai-shek. In 1910 Kornilov was recalled from Beijing but remained in St. Petersburg for only five months before departing for western Mongolia and
Kashgar to examine the military situation along China's border with Russia. On 2 February 1911 he became Commander of the 8th Infantry Regiment of
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, an ...
and was later appointed commander of the 9th Siberian Rifle Division, stationed in
Vladivostok.
In 1914, at the start of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, Kornilov was appointed commander of the 48th Infantry Division, which saw combat in
Galicia
Galicia may refer to:
Geographic regions
* Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain
** Gallaecia, a Roman province
** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia
** The medieval King ...
and the
Carpathians
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The range stretche ...
. In 1915, he was promoted to the rank of
major general
Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of ...
. During heavy fighting, he was captured by the Austrians in April 1915, when his division became isolated from the rest of the Russian forces. After his capture,
Field Marshal Conrad, the commander of the
Austro-Hungarian Army, made a point of meeting him in person. As a major general, he was a high-value prisoner of war, but in July 1916 Kornilov managed to escape back to Russia and return to duty.
After the abdication of
Tsar Nicholas II, he was given command of the
Petrograd Military District in March 1917. On 8 March, Kornilov placed the Empress
Alexandra and her children under house arrest at the
Alexander Palace (Nicholas was still held at
Stavka
The ''Stavka'' (Russian and Ukrainian: Ставка) is a name of the high command of the armed forces formerly in the Russian Empire, Soviet Union and currently in Ukraine.
In Imperial Russia ''Stavka'' referred to the administrative staff ...
), replacing the
Tsar's Escort and Combined Regiments of the
Imperial Guard
An imperial guard or palace guard is a special group of troops (or a member thereof) of an empire, typically closely associated directly with the Emperor or Empress. Usually these troops embody a more elite status than other imperial forces, i ...
with 300 revolutionary troops. But when the
Provisional Government
A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, or a transitional government, is an emergency governmental authority set up to manage a political transition generally in the cases of a newly formed state or ...
declined to give him the authority he sought to deal with indiscipline, he was transferred at his request to command the Russian Eighth Army. His army inflicted a spectacular defeat on the Austrians, taking ten thousand prisoners - Russia's only notable military success in the year 1917 - though after five days, was forced to retreat. On 24 July, he was appointed commander of the southern front. A week later, he replaced
Aleksei Brusilov
Aleksei Alekseyevich Brusilov ( rus, Алексе́й Алексе́евич Бруси́лов, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej ɐlʲɪkˈsʲejɪvʲɪdʑ brʊˈsʲiɫəf; – 17 March 1926) was a Russian and later Soviet general most noted for the developme ...
as Supreme
Commander-in-Chief of the Provisional Government's armed forces.
Kornilov Affair
In the mass discontent following the
July Days, the Russian populace grew highly skeptical about the Provisional Government's abilities to alleviate the economic distress and social resentment among the lower classes. Pavel Milyukov, the Kadet leader, describes the situation in Russia in late July as,
"Chaos in the army, chaos in foreign policy, chaos in industry and chaos in the nationalist questions".
Kornilov, appointed commander-in-chief of the Russian army in July 1917, considered the Petrograd Soviet responsible for the breakdown in the military in recent times and believed that the Provisional Government lacked the power and confidence to dissolve the Petrograd Soviet. Following several ambiguous correspondences between Kornilov and
Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, ; original spelling: ( – 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months from late July to early Novem ...
, Kornilov commanded an assault on the Petrograd Soviet.
Because the Petrograd Soviet was able to quickly gather a powerful army of workers and soldiers in defence of the Revolution, Kornilov's coup was an abysmal failure, and he was placed under arrest. The Kornilov Affair resulted in significantly increased distrust among Russians towards the Provisional Government.
Russian Civil War
After the alleged coup collapsed as his troops disintegrated, Kornilov and his fellow conspirators were placed under arrest in the
Bykhov jail. On 19 November, a few weeks after the proclamation of Soviet power in Petrograd, they escaped from their confinement (eased by the fact that the jail was guarded by Kornilov's supporters) and made their way to the
Don region, which was controlled by the
Don Cossacks. Here they linked up with General
Mikhail Alekseev. Kornilov became the military commander of the anti-Bolshevik
Volunteer Army with Alekseev as the political chief.
The Kornilov Shock Detachment of the
8th Army was the most famous and longest-lived volunteer unit in the Russian Imperial Army. It was also the last regiment of the Russian Imperial Army and the first of the Volunteer Army. In late 1917, the Kornilov Shock Regiment, one of the crack units of the
Volunteer Army, was named after him, as well as many other autonomous White Army formations, such as the
Kuban Cossack
Kuban Cossacks (russian: кубанские казаки, ''kubanskiye kаzaki''; uk, кубанські козаки, ''kubanski kozaky''), or Kubanians (russian: кубанцы, ; uk, кубанці, ), are Cossacks who live in the Kuban re ...
Kornilov Horse Regiment. Kornilov's forces became recognizable for their
Totenkopf
''Totenkopf'' (, i.e. ''skull'', literally "dead person's head") is the German word for the skull and crossbones symbol. The "skull and crossbones" symbol is an old international symbol for death, the defiance of death, danger, or the dead, as ...
insignia, which appeared on the regiment's flags, pennants, and soldiers' sleeve patches.
Even before the Red Army was formed, Lavr Kornilov promised, "the greater the terror, the greater our victories."
He vowed that the goals of his forces must be fulfilled even if it was needed "to set fire to half the country and shed the blood of three-quarters of all Russians." In the Don region village of Lezhanka alone, bands of Kornilov's officers killed more than 500 people. On the other hand, Kornilov's adjutant recalled that the general "loved only the
ussiaitself" and served it for all his life, having no time to think about political systems. The Bolsheviks for him were dangerous traitors, who ruined Russia's unity and had to be stopped.
On 24 February 1918, as
Rostov and the Don Cossack capital of
Novocherkassk
Novocherkassk (russian: Новочерка́сск, lit. ''New Cherkassk'') is a city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located near the confluence of the Tuzlov and Aksay Rivers, the latter a distributary of the Don River. Novocherkassk is best known as ...
fell to the Bolsheviks, Kornilov led the Volunteer Army on the epic '
Ice March' into the empty steppe towards the
Kuban. Although badly outnumbered, he escaped destruction from pursuing Bolshevik forces and laid siege to
Ekaterinodar, the capital of the
Kuban Soviet Republic, on 10 April. However, in the early morning of 13 April, a Soviet shell landed on his farmhouse headquarters and killed him. He was quietly buried in nearby Gnadau (modern day
Dolinovskoe).
A few days later, when the Bolsheviks gained control of the village, they
unearthed Kornilov's coffin, dragged his corpse to the main square and
burnt his remains on the local rubbish dump.
Memorials
In 13 April 2013, a monument to the late General was erected in Krasnodar. Commemoration ceremonies took place with local cossacks, along with Cossacks from
Don,
Stavropol and
Taman.
Honours and awards
*
Order of St. Stanislaus, third degree (1901), 2nd degree (1904 and 1906 with swords)
*
Order of St. Anne, 3rd degree (1903) and 2nd degree (6 December 1909)
*
Order of St. George, 4th degree (9 August 1905) and 3rd degree (28 April 1915)
*
Gold Sword for Bravery (9 May 1907)
* Badge of the 1st Kuban (Ice) campaign (3 October 1918), issued posthumously, No.1 out of 3,689
References
Bibliography
*Asher, Harvey. "The Kornilov Affair: A Reinterpretation." ''Russian Review'' (1970) 29#3 pp: 286-300
in JSTOR* Grebenkin, I. N. "General L.G. Kornilov: A Rough Sketch for a Character Portrait." ''Russian Studies in History'' 56.3 (2017): 188-211.
*Katkov, George. ''Russia 1917, the Kornilov Affair: Kerensky and the Break-up of the Russian Army'' (Longman, 1980)
*Mawdsley, Evan. ''The Russian Civil War'' (2008)
*Moncure, James A. ed. ''Research Guide to European Historical Biography: 1450-Present'' (4 vol 1992) 3:1082-90
*White, James D. "The Kornilov affair—a study in counter‐revolution," ''Europe‐Asia Studies'' (1968) 20#2 pp 187–205.
* Yang, Ho-Hwan. "Different Ways of Interpreting the Kornilov Affair: A Review of George Katkov's The Kornilov Affair: Kerensky and the Break-up of the Russian Army, London and New York: Longman, 1980" ''The SNU Journal of Education Research'' (1993) pp 17–28
online
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kornilov, Lavr Georgevich
1870 births
1918 deaths
People from Oskemen
People from Semipalatinsk Oblast
Commanders-in-chief of the Russian Army
Cossacks from the Russian Empire
People of the Russian Civil War
Recipients of the Gold Sword for Bravery
Recipients of the Order of Saint Stanislaus (Russian), 2nd class
Recipients of the Order of St. Anna, 2nd class
Recipients of the Order of St. George of the Third Degree
Russian people of Kazakhstani descent
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Posthumous executions