Osip Solomonovich Minor ( be, Осіп Саламонавіч Мінор; russian: link=no, Осип Соломонович Минор; 8December 1861 – 24 September 1932) was a Russian revolutionary and member of the

Socialist-Revolutionary Party The Socialist Revolutionary Party, or the Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries (the SRs, , or Esers, russian: эсеры, translit=esery, label=none; russian: Партия социалистов-революционеров, ), was a major politi ...

. Minor was born in

Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...

(now in

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...

, then part of

Minsk Governorate The Minsk Governorate (russian: Минская губерния, Belarusian: ) or Government of Minsk was a governorate ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire. The seat was in Minsk. It was created in 1793 from the land acquired in the partition ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

). His father was Rabbi Solomon Minor, and many of his ancestors had been rabbis as well.

Revolutionary politics

Minor became involved in revolutionary politics while studying at the University of Moscow. He joined the party of '

People's Will Narodnaya Volya ( rus, Наро́дная во́ля, p=nɐˈrodnəjə ˈvolʲə, t=People's Will) was a late 19th-century revolutionary political organization in the Russian Empire which conducted assassinations of government officials in an att ...

' in the early 1880s. In 1883 he was arrested for the first time, and again in 1885. In 1887 he received a sentence of ten years hard labour in Siberia. On 22 March 1889 he participated in a prisoners' uprising in

Yakutsk Yakutsk (russian: Якутск, p=jɪˈkutsk; sah, Дьокуускай, translit=Djokuuskay, ) is the capital city of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located about south of the Arctic Circle. Fueled by the mining industry, Yakutsk has become one of ...

and was condemned to death by hanging, but the sentence was commuted to hard labour for life. In 1896 he was released but forbidden to live in European Russia. That restriction was eased in 1898; he was merely forbidden to live in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

or Moscow.

Vilna revolutionary movement

Around 1900 he settled in Vilna (now

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

in Lithuania). He became active in the revolutionary movement in Vilna, but gravitated toward

Narodnik The Narodniks (russian: народники, ) were a politically conscious movement of the Russian intelligentsia in the 1860s and 1870s, some of whom became involved in revolutionary agitation against tsarism. Their ideology, known as Narodism, ...

circles rather than to the

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

Bund because they seemed to him to be more revolutionary. He was affiliated with the mainly Jewish Socialist-Revolutionary Workers' Party for the Political Liberation of Russia, organised by

Mark Natanson Mark Andreyevich Natanson (russian: Марк Андре́евич Натансо́н; party name: Bobrov) (25 December 1850 ( N.S. 6 January 1851) – 29 July 1919) was a Russian revolutionary who was one of the founders of the Circle of Tchaikov ...

PSR

In 1901, Minor travelled abroad and assisted in the unification of various Socialist-Revolutionary groups in the

(PSR). He returned to Russia and worked for the PSR in various capacities and participated in the

Revolution of 1905 The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...

. In 1909, Evno Azev, head of the PSR's 'Combat Organisation' and an agent of the

Okhrana The Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order (russian: Отделение по охранению общественной безопасности и порядка), usually called Guard Department ( rus, Охранное отд ...

(secret police), betrayed Minor and had him arrested again, but by 1913 Minor had escaped from Siberia and was in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, working with the organisation of Russian Socialis-Revolutionries Abroad. He seems to have returned to Russia but was captured. He was freed by the

February Revolution The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...

of 1917.

World War I

During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Minor took a Defencist position, which put him at odds with the PSR leader

Viktor Chernov Viktor Mikhailovich Chernov (russian: Ви́ктор Миха́йлович Черно́в; December 7, 1873 – April 15, 1952) was a Russian revolutionary and one of the founders of the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary Party. He was the primar ...

and with his old associate Natanson. In 1917 Minor became president of the Moscow City Duma. He opposed the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

and supported attempts to set up an anti-Bolshevik democratic government.

Later years

Minor left Russia in 1919. He settled in Paris, remained active in the community of Russian exiles and edited the journal ''Volia Rossii'' (''Russian Will''), together with V. M. Zenzinov and V. I. Lebedev. In 1921 he was one of the authors of an exposé of the

Kronstadt rebellion The Kronstadt rebellion ( rus, Кронштадтское восстание, Kronshtadtskoye vosstaniye) was a 1921 insurrection of Soviet sailors and civilians against the Bolshevik government in the Russian SFSR port city of Kronstadt. Locat ...

and its suppression by the Bolsheviks, ''The Truth about Kronstadt''. Minor also served as chairman of the Society for Assistance to Exiles and Political Prisoners in Russia. Among his close friends was

Ilya Fondaminsky Ilya Isidorovich Fondaminsky (''Илья′ Исидо′рович Фондами′нский'', February 17, 1880, Moscow, Russia — November 19, 1942, Auschwitz, Nazi-occupied Poland), was a Russian author (writing under the pseudonym ''I. B ...

('Bunakov'), a veteran SR who later converted from Judaism to Orthodox Christianity and was murdered in the

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

concentration camp in 1942. He wrote his memoirs, ''Eto Bylo Davno'' (''It was Long Ago''), covering the pre-war period; they were published posthumously in 1933.

References

*Minor, O.S., ''Eto bylo davno: Vospominaniia soldata revoliutsii''. Paris, 1933. *''Sotsialisticheskiy Vestnik'', 19 (1932), 16 *Chernov, V.M., 'Yidishe Tuer in der Partey Sotsial Revolutsionern' New York, 1948, pp. 246–58. *Slutsky, Y., 'Minor, Osip S.', in: ''Jewish Virtual Library''. Online at: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0014_0_13949.html. *Hildermeier, M., ''Die Sozialrevolutionäre Partei Russlands.'' Cologne, 1979. *Slonim, M., 'Reminiscences on the Revolution .' In: ''Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique.'' (1977) Vol. 18 No. 18-4. {{DEFAULTSORT:Minor, Osip 1861 births 1932 deaths Politicians from Minsk People from Minsky Uyezd Belarusian Jews Narodniks Narodnaya Volya Socialist Revolutionary Party politicians People of the Russian Revolution Jewish socialists Belarusian revolutionaries Russian revolutionaries