Georgy Viktorovich Bulatsel (russian: Гео́ргий Ви́кторович Булаце́ль; 187528 April 1918) was a
lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...
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 ...
. After the
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...
, he was a military advisor for the
Red Guards in the 1918
Finnish Civil War. Bulatsel was one of the highest-ranked Russian officers who joined the Finnish Reds.
Russo-Japanese War and the World War I
Georgy Bulatsel was born to a noble family in
Kharkiv. In 1904–1905 he fought in the
Russo-Japanese War and was later transferred to Finland, which was then a part of the Russian Empire. During
World War I, Bulatsel fought against the Germans on the
Eastern Front but caught
typhoid and returned to Finland. Before the 1917 Revolution, Bulatsel was the Commander of the 421th Regiment, based in
Rauma, Western Finland.
[Haapala, Pertti & Hoppu, Tuomas: ″Sisällissodan pikkujättiläinen″, p. 174. WSOY, 2009. .]
Finnish Civil War
As the Finnish Civil War started in January 1918, Bulatsel was the Commander of the 1st Brigade of the 106th division in
Tampere. In late February,
Hugo Salmela replaced
Mikhail Svechnikov as the Commander-in-Chief of the Red Guards. Salmela did not have any kind of military training, so Bulatsel became his advisor. After the
Battle of Tampere, Bulatsel was arrested by the
Whites and executed on 28 April. He was buried at the
Kalevankangas Cemetery. Bulatsel's two sons, 13-year-old Woldemar and 15-year-old Nikolai, were shot just a couple of days later in the
Vyborg massacre.
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bulatsel, Georgy
1875 births
1918 deaths
Musicians from Kharkiv
People from Kharkovsky Uyezd
Imperial Russian Army officers
Russian military personnel of the Russo-Japanese War
Russian military personnel of World War I
People of the Finnish Civil War (Red side)
Russian people executed abroad
People executed by Finland by firing squad
20th-century executions by Finland