Nikolai Vissarionovich Nekrasov () (,

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

– May 7, 1940,

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

) was a Russian liberal politician and the last

Governor-General of Finland The governor-general of Finland was the military commander and the highest administrator of Finland sporadically Finland under Swedish rule, under Swedish rule in the 17th and 18th centuries and continuously in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finl ...

Biography

Parliamentary career

Born in the family of a priest, Nekrasov graduated with a degree in transportation engineering in 1902 and went abroad for graduate studies. After returning to Russia in 1904, he became a professor at the Tomsk Engineering Institute. In late 1905, at the height of the

Russian Revolution of 1905 The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, t ...

, he helped found the

Constitutional Democratic Party The Constitutional Democratic Party (, K-D), also called Constitutional Democrats and formally the Party of People's Freedom (), was a political party in the Russian Empire that promoted Western constitutional monarchy—among other policies� ...

(aka the Kadet party) and headed its regional office in

Yalta Yalta (: ) is a resort town, resort city on the south coast of the Crimean Peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea. It serves as the administrative center of Yalta Municipality, one of the regions within Crimea. Yalta, along with the rest of Crime ...

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

. He was elected to the 3rd (1907) and 4th (1912)

State Duma The State Duma is the lower house of the Federal Assembly (Russia), Federal Assembly of Russia, with the upper house being the Federation Council (Russia), Federation Council. It was established by the Constitution of Russia, Constitution of t ...

s. Nekrasov was an active member of the irregular freemasonic lodge, the Grand Orient of Russia's Peoples. He was the Secretary General from 1912 to 1913 and again from 1914 to 1916. Between 1909 and 1915, Nekrasov was a member of the Kadets' Central Committee, where he was consistently Left of center. He delivered the Kadets' parliamentary interpellation on April 9, 1912 after the

Lena massacre The Lena Massacre or Lena Execution () refers to the shooting of goldfield workers on strike in northeast Siberia near the Lena River on . The strike had been provoked by exceptionally harsh working conditions, and when the strike committ ...

, denouncing what he described as the government's illegal interference in an economic dispute between labor and capital on the side of the latter. Later in 1912 Nekrasov argued that "constructive work" within the Duma had been made impossible by the

Tsar Tsar (; also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar''; ; ; sr-Cyrl-Latn, цар, car) is a title historically used by Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word '' caesar'', which was intended to mean ''emperor'' in the Euro ...

ist government and that the party should be more confrontational and use the Duma for anti-government propaganda instead of lawmaking. On June 11, 1915 he resigned from the Central Committee over what he saw as the majority's willingness to give the government a blank check during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. On November 6, 1916, Nekrasov was elected deputy Chairman of the Duma. At the same time, convinced that Emperor Nicholas II and his court were leading the country down the road to a military defeat and revolution, Nekrasov began plotting with former Duma Chairman Octobrist

Alexander Guchkov Alexander Ivanovich Guchkov (; 14 October 1862 – 14 February 1936) was a Russian politician, Chairman of the Third Duma and Minister of War in the Russian Provisional Government. Early years Alexander Guchkov was born in Moscow. Unlike most ...

, Kerensky, Aleksandr Konovalov and industrialist Mikhail Tereshchenko to force Nicholas to abdicate. Nicholas’ 13-year-old son, Alexei, would then assume the throne and Nicholas' more liberal brother, Grand Duke Michael, would become

Regent In a monarchy, a regent () is a person appointed to govern a state because the actual monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge their powers and duties, or the throne is vacant and a new monarch has not yet been dete ...

. Their plans were still in progress when the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

of 1917 made them moot.

Government Minister (March–August 1917)

Nekrasov became a member of the

Provisional Committee of the State Duma The Provisional Committee of the State Duma () was a special government body established on March 12, 1917 (27 February O.S.) by the Fourth State Duma deputies at the outbreak of the February Revolution in the same year. It was formed under ...

on February 27, 1917. On March 2 he was appointed transportation minister in the

Russian Provisional Government The Russian Provisional Government was a provisional government of the Russian Empire and Russian Republic, announced two days before and established immediately after the abdication of Nicholas II on 2 March, O.S. New_Style.html" ;"title="5 ...

formed by the Duma. He argued for the inclusion of moderate socialists (

Mensheviks The Mensheviks ('the Minority') were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. Mensheviks held more moderate and reformist ...

and Socialist Revolutionaries) in the government On the key part played by Nekrasov, Prince Lvov and the Progressist leaders A. I. Konovalov and I. N. Efremov in the formation of the first coalition government in May 1917, see Rex A. Wade. ''The Russian Revolution, 1917'', Cambridge University Press, 2005, p.292. and kept his post in the liberal-socialist coalition government formed on May 5. In late June Nekrasov was one of the Provisional Government's representatives at the negotiations with the Ukrainian

Rada The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, also known by its abbreviation RADA (), is a drama school in London, England, which provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in Bloomsbury, Central Lond ...

, which granted Ukraine a measure of autonomy within Russia. The agreement was adamantly opposed by the Kadet leadership, which wanted to postpone any decisions regarding ethnic minorities until the convocation of the

Russian Constituent Assembly The All Russian Constituent Assembly () was a constituent assembly convened in Russia after the February Revolution of 1917. It met for 13 hours, from 4 p.m. to 5 a.m., , whereupon it was dissolved by the Bolshevik-led All-Russian Central Ex ...

. When other Kadet ministers left the government in protest on July 2, Nekrasov resigned from the party and became deputy prime minister on July 8 after

Alexander Kerensky Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky ( – 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 November 1917 ( N.S.). After th ...

replaced Georgy Lvov as head of government. When the coalition was re-formed under Kerensky on July 24, Nekrasov remained deputy prime minister and also became finance minister, representing the Radical Democratic Party. During the

Kornilov Affair The Kornilov affair, or the Kornilov putsch, was an attempted military coup d'état by the commander-in-chief of the Russian Army, General Lavr Kornilov, from 10 to 13 September 1917 ( O.S., 28–31 August), against the Russian Provisional Gov ...

in late August, Nekrasov first supported Kerensky, but at one point suggested that Kerensky's resignation may present a way out of the crisis, which resulted in his exclusion from the next coalition government in September.

Last Governor-General of Finland (September–November 1917)

On September 17 (

New Style Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, they refer to the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various Europe, European countrie ...

from this point on) Nekrasov was appointed

after Mikhail Aleksandrovich Stakhovich quit the post. Nekrasov's job was to negotiate between the Finnish Senate and the Russian Provisional Government. The Senate wanted to secure the Finnish autonomy with a treaty. This was approved by Kerensky in September, but in October the Senate came up with a new proposal which would further increase Finnish independence. On the morning of November 7, Nekrasov, on his way to

to hand over the proposal to Kerensky, found out that the Provisional Government had been overthrown by the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

during the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

. He informed the Senate that he would not return to Finland.

After the 1917 Revolution

Nekrasov kept a low profile during the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

and did not resist the Bolsheviks, moving to

Kazan Kazan; , IPA: Help:IPA/Tatar, ɑzanis the largest city and capital city, capital of Tatarstan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka (river), Kazanka Rivers, covering an area of , with a population of over 1. ...

in 1919. After the war ended, he was arrested in March 1921 and kept in prison for 2 months. He was released in May and made a member of the governing board of the Union of Consumer Cooperatives, where he remained until his next arrest on November 3, 1930. He was accused of having been involved in the Menshevik Center conspiracy and sentenced to 10 years in prison. After an early release in March 1933, he was arrested again on June 13, 1939, sentenced to death and shot on May 7, 1940.

Awards

Order of the Red Banner of Labour The Order of the Red Banner of Labour () was an order of the Soviet Union established to honour great deeds and services to the Soviet state and society in the fields of production, science, culture, literature, the arts, education, sports ...

(1938)

Works

*''Perspektivy razvitiia potrebitel'skoi kooperatsii na piat' let'' (with M. L. Maksimov), 1927, 207p. *''General'nye dogovory vo vzaimootnosheniiah gosudarstvennoi promyshlennosti i poterbitel'skoi kooperatsii'' (with Abram Anan'evich Kissin), Moscow, 1928, xi, 174p.

Notes

References

*''Politicheskie deyateli Rossii 1917: Biograficheskij slovar, ed. Pavel Volobuev, Moscow, 1993, . , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Nekrasov, Nikolai Vissarionovich 1879 births 1940 deaths Politicians from Saint Petersburg People from Sankt-Peterburgsky Uyezd Russian Constitutional Democratic Party members Ministers of the Russian Provisional Government Members of the 3rd State Duma of the Russian Empire Members of the 4th State Duma of the Russian Empire Members of the State Duma of the Russian Empire from Tomsk Governorate Governors of the Grand Duchy of Finland Members of the Grand Orient of Russia's Peoples Academic staff of Tomsk Polytechnic University Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Executed people from Saint Petersburg Russian people executed by the Soviet Union Soviet rehabilitations