Boris Viktorovich Savinkov

Boris Viktorovich Savinkov

Boris Savinkov ( Russian Борис Викторович Савинков ., Scientific transliteration Boris Viktorovič Savinkov ; born January 19, ^jul. / 31 January  1879 ^greg. In Kharkov , Russian Empire ; † 7 May 1925 in Moscow ) was a Russian politician, Terrorist and author. As a Social Revolutionary he was initially an opponent of the tsarist state and after the October Revolution became a staunch enemy of the Soviet system . As one of the leading members of the armed arm of the Social Revolutionary Party, which was led first by Grigori Gerschuni and later by Yevno Asef , he was involved in a large number of attacks on political opponents.

Life

In his hometown of Warsaw , which was part of the tsarist empire , the son of a lawyer from a noble family joined the Social Revolutionaries who wanted to overthrow tsarist rule by force as a law student . He became known through his involvement in the assassination of the Russian interior minister Vyacheslav von Plehwe in 1904 and in the assassination attempt on Grand Duke Sergei Romanov in 1905 by Ivan Kaljajew . For these acts he was arrested in 1906 and sentenced to death. However, he managed to escape from a prison in Odessa , where he to enforcement are incarcerated punishment would.

The death penalty escaped, he fled abroad, from 1909 he lived in France . There he began to write novels against the background of his experiences in a terrorist organization , and as a result, he became widely known not only in Russian emigration, but also in the Russian Empire. Only after the February Revolution and the abdication of the Tsar did he return to Russia in April 1917. He became Deputy Minister of War in the Kerensky government . However, he was soon expelled from both the government and the Social Revolutionary Party for advocating negotiations with the reactionary General Kornilov , who had attempted a military overthrow in September 1917 . Nevertheless, he stayed in Russia and fought against the new rulers after the victory of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution .

As the leader of a group called "Society for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom", Savinkov organized several armed uprisings against the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War ; so among others in Yaroslavl , Rybinsk and Murom . However, these uprisings could be put down by the Red Army and units of the Cheka .

Thereupon he became involved in Omsk in the regional government of Admiral Kolchak , a leader of the White Movement in the fight against the Red Army. On the occasion of the Polish-Soviet War from 1919 to 1921 he went to Poland . There he founded a political organization whose aim was to get Soviet prisoners of war against the Bolsheviks. In fact, the formation of several units formed from former prisoners of war who took part in the fight on the part of the Poles succeeded. His fight against the Bolsheviks was supported by Winston Churchill , who, as Secretary of State in the British Ministry of War, directed intelligence activities against the Moscow regime.

Boris Savinkov (left, marked with a cross) during the trial against him in Moscow. (Between August 16 and August 29, 1924)

In 1922 he emigrated to Paris. Savinkov was involved in some conspiracies against the Bolsheviks, along with the renegade British secret agent Sidney Reilly . In some cases he was supported by the British secret service SIS . Savinkov's activities did not go unnoticed by the Bolsheviks. The Soviet secret service OGPU therefore made efforts to render him harmless.

In August 1924 Soviet agents succeeded in luring Savinkov to Soviet Russia under the pretense of the possibility of a conspiratorial meeting with alleged anti-Soviet conspirators . There he was immediately arrested and taken to a prison in Moscow. Historians believe that he was tortured while in custody; in any case, he wrote a pledge of repentance and also vowed to recognize the Soviet power. On May 7, 1925, Savinkov fell to his death from a window on the fifth floor of Lubyanka prison. According to official reports, while he committed suicide, other sources say he was murdered at the behest of Felix Dzerzhinsky . After his death, Churchill published a long essay on Savinkov, which he had met personally.

His “Memories of a Terrorist” were also printed in the Soviet Union until 1928 . After that, his works were taboo until perestroika ; they were not allowed to appear again until 1989.

Publications

Savinkov has authored several novels , the best known of which is the autobiographical novel The Pale Horse . The work gives insights into the frame of mind of a terrorist and his motives for the acts of violence committed. He was sponsored by the writer couple Sinaida Hippius and Dmitri Mereschkowski , who also took care of the publication of the novel, it was published in 1914 under the pseudonym W. Ropschin . In 2004 this novel was made into a film by Karen Schachnasarow under the title The Horseman Named Death . Most widespread is probably the description of his terrorist actions published by him under the title Memories of a Terrorist .

See also

• Irène Némirovsky : The Kurilov case
• Albert Camus : The Righteous

Translations

• The pale horse. A terrorist's novel . Translation by Alexander Nitzberg . Galiani Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-86971-114-0 .
  • therein: Alexander Nitzberg: Boris Savinkow: Dostoyevsky's Incarnate Vision, pp. 235–269
  • therein: Jörg Baberowski : The craft of killing. Boris Savinkov and Russian Terrorism, pp. 205–232
• Memories of a terrorist . Translated by Arkadi Maslow . Revised and supplemented by Barbara Conrad. With a preliminary and a follow-up report by Hans Magnus Enzensberger . Franz Greno, Nördlingen 1985, series: Die Other Bibliothek (without ISBN). New edition: Bahoe Books, Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-903022-42-3
• The black horse. Novel from the Russian Civil War . Translation by Alexander Nitzberg. Galiani Verlag, Berlin 2017

literature

• Jacques-Francis Rolland : Boris Savinkov. L'Homme qui défia Lénine . Grasset, Paris 1989, ISBN 2-246-27481-8 .
• Richard B. Spence: Boris Savinkov, Renegade on the Left . Columbia University Press, New York 1991

Web links

Commons : Boris Savinkov  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Visions of Terror: Boris Viktorovich Savinkov (1879-1925) , (accessed November 7, 2015)
• Enziklopedija Krugoswet: Savinkow , Boris Wiktorowitsch (In Russian; accessed November 7, 2015)
• Newspaper article about Boris Wiktorowitsch Savinkow in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Biographical information, unless otherwise stated, according to: Vol'fgang Kazak : Leksikon russkoj literatury XX veka. Moscow 1996, p. 359.
2. ^ Jörg Baberowski, The craft of killing. Boris Savinkow and Russian Terrorism, in: Boris Savinkow: The pale horse . Berlin 2015, pp. 210–215.
3. ^ Jörg Baberowski, The craft of killing. Boris Savinkow and Russian Terrorism, in: Boris Savinkow: The pale horse . Berlin 2015, p. 226.
4. ↑ Nicolas Werth , A state against its people. Violence, oppression and terror in the Soviet Union, in: The black book of communism . Munich / Zurich 1998, p. 86.
5. ↑ Chris Wrigley: Winston Churchill. A Biographical Companion. Santa Barbara / Denver / Oxford 2002, p. 300.
6. ^ Jörg Baberowski, The craft of killing. Boris Savinkow and Russian Terrorism, in: Boris Savinkow: The pale horse . Berlin 2015, p. 227.
7. ↑ Jonathan Brent, Vladimir P. Naumov: To Beria from Ignatiev , March 27, 1953 . In Stalin's Last Crime . John Murray (Publishers) , London 2003, p. 218.
8. ↑ Jonathan Rose: The Literary Churchill. Author, reader, actor. New Haven / London 2014, p. 161.
9. ↑ Vol'fgang Kazak: Leksikon russkoj literatury XX veka. Moscow 1996, p. 359.
10. ↑ Thomas Urban : Apocalyptic Horseman. Boris Savinkov's terror novel "The pale horse" . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 1, 2015, p. L2.
11. ↑ Alexander Nitzberg, Boris Savinkow - Dostojewski's vision made flesh, in: Boris Savinkow: Das pahle Pferd . Berlin 2015, p. 251.