Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Prince Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov (7/8 March 1925) was a Russian aristocrat and statesman who served as the first prime minister of republican Russia from 15 March to 20 July 1917. During this time he served as Russia's ''de facto'' head of state. A member of the
Lvov princely family Lvov (russian: Львов) is the name of a princely Russian family of Rurikid stock. The family is descended from the princes of Yaroslavl where early members of the family are buried. Notable members *Knyaz Matvey Danilovich (?–1603), Voivod ...
, Lvov gained national fame for organising relief work in the Russian Far East during the Russo-Japanese War. In 1905, he joined the Constitutional Democratic Party.


Early life and education

Georgy Lvov was born on 2 November 1861 (21 October, Old Style, Julian Calendar) in Dresden, Saxony, then part of the German Confederation. The
Lvov princely family Lvov (russian: Львов) is the name of a princely Russian family of Rurikid stock. The family is descended from the princes of Yaroslavl where early members of the family are buried. Notable members *Knyaz Matvey Danilovich (?–1603), Voivod ...
were among the oldest Russian noble families, tracing their roots from the sovereign Rurik dynasty princes of Yaroslavl. His father was a reform-minded liberal who spent almost all his income on his children's education; Lvov and his five brothers were sent off to the most prestigious Moscow schools. Throughout his youth, Georgy lived with his family at their ancestral home at Popovka in Tula province, less than away from Moscow and only a few miles away from Yasnaya Polyana, the home of writer Leo Tolstoy. The Lvovs counted Tolstoy as one of their closest friends. By the standards of the Russian noble class, the Lvovs lived a frugal lifestyle. Luxuries were minimal and their estate was considered small at only . The Lvovs generated massive debts in excess of around 150,000 roubles by the end of the 1870s. With the
abolition of serfdom The abolition of slavery occurred at different times in different countries. It frequently occurred sequentially in more than one stage – for example, as abolition of the trade in slaves in a specific country, and then as abolition of slavery ...
, they fell into the category of landowners who did not have the means to live in the manner to which many other Russian nobles had been accustomed. In order to pay off their arrears, the family were forced to sell their other landed estates, a brewery in
Briansk Bryansk ( rus, Брянск, p=brʲansk) is a city and the administrative center of Bryansk Oblast, Russia, situated on the River Desna, southwest of Moscow. Population: Geography Urban layout The location of the settlement was originally ass ...
, and their flat in Moscow. Despite this, they remained heavily in debt and were faced with the prospect of either having to sell Popovka or convert it into a profitable farm. The Lvovs opted for the latter, with Georgy later recalling: "The idea of giving up the home of our ancestors was unthinkable". The farm at Popovka had become so dilapidated after decades of neglect that it required strenuous work to restore it. By this time his father was too ill to work, leaving Georgy's four older brothers and only sister to take charge of the farm while he studied law at the University of Moscow. The family laid off all their servants and lived like peasants ― Lvov would later recall this time as a source of his own emancipation: "It separated us from the upper crust and made us democratic". As a result of their labour, all debts were repaid by the late 1880s and their ancestral home saved. In 1899, Prince Lvov married a Hungarian-born portrait painter
Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy Princess Elisabeth Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy (born as ''Brachfeld Vilma Erzsébet'', Hajdúdorog, 15 April 1863 - New York, 28 August 1923) was a Hungarian people, Hungarian-born portrait painter who worked in Germany and the United States. She is kno ...
in Prague; they were quickly divorced, though Vilma continued to style herself the "Princess Lwoff-Parlaghy" using her artist name with the authorization of Prince Lvov. The Prince also continued to provide her with a permanent annual allowance. Lvov was also married to Countess Julia Alexeievna Bobrinskaya (1867–1903), great-great-granddaughter of Grigory Orlov and
Catherine the Great , en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes , house = , father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp , birth_date = , birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anhal ...
, without issue. They met whilst Lvov was working in a soup kitchen in
Tambov province Tambov Governorate was an administrative unit of the Russian Empire, Russian Republic, and later the Russian SFSR, centred around the city of Tambov. The governorate was located between 51°14' and 55°6' north and between 38°9' and 43°38' east ...
during the
Russian famine of 1891–1892 The Russian famine of 1891–1892 began along the Volga River and spread as far as the Urals and Black Sea. It caused 375,000 to 400,000 deaths. The reawakening of Russian Marxism and populism is often traced to the public's anger ovet the tsaris ...
.


Pre-revolution


Russo-Japanese War

With the outbreak of war between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire in January 1904, the provincial zemstvos were mobilised to assist with the war effort. To help the Red Cross on the Manchurian front, thirteen zemstvos formed a combined medical brigade consisting of 360 doctors and nurses, led by Lvov. This marked the first time that zemstvos had been allowed to organise themselves at a national level after their powers had been restricted by Alexander III in 1890. Lvov had pleaded with Tsar Nicholas to let the brigade go; the Tsar was so moved by his patriotic sentiment that he ended up hugging and kissing him and wished him well. The relief mission, which won high praise from Russian military leaders, turned Lvov into a national hero and enabled the zemstvos to reintegrate themselves into Russian governing society.


Revolution of 1905

A year later he won election to the First Duma, and was nominated for a ministerial position. He became chairman of the All-Russian Union of Zemstvos in 1914, and in 1915 he became a leader of the Union of Zemstvos as well as a member of
Zemgor Zemgor (russian: Земгор or Объединённый комитет Земского союза и Союза городов; literally ''United Committee of the Union of Zemstvos and the Union of Towns'') was a Russian organization created in ...
, a joint committee of the Union of Zemstvos and the Union of Towns that helped supply the military and tend to the wounded from World War I. In December 1916, after Prince Lvov's tirades at the Congress of Zemstvos, the Voluntary Organisations would allow no one to work for the government unless their collaboration were purchased by political concessions.G. Katkov (1967) Russia 1917. The February Revolution, p. 228.


February Revolution

On 14 January O.S. (27 January N.S.) Lvov proposed to Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich that he should take control of the country. At the end of January negotiations took place between the Allied powers in
Petrograd 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 ...
; unofficially they sought to clarify the internal situation in Russia.


Head of the provisional government

During 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 ...
and the abdication of
Nicholas II Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Pola ...
, emperor of Russia, Lvov was made head of the provisional government founded by the Duma on 2 March 1917. During his first weeks as prime minister, Lvov presided over a series of fleeting reforms which sought to radically liberalise Russia. Universal adult suffrage was introduced, freedoms of press and speech were granted, capital punishment abolished, and all legal restrictions of religion, class and race were removed. In late March, a delegation of women
suffragettes A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
planned to lobby Lvov for the right of women to vote in local government elections. Expecting a strenuous battle, the suffragettes were shocked to learn that Lvov had already granted women the
right to vote Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...
, saying "Why shouldn't women vote? ..Surely, with universal suffrage there can be no reason to exclude women". Lvov's reforms helped create a new culture of democracy in Russia. One peasant from Penza province changed his surname to Lvov, and another to 'Demakratov'. Unable to rally sufficient support, he resigned in July 1917 in favour of his Minister of War, Alexander Kerensky. After the October Revolution he settled in Tyumen. In the winter of 1917 he was arrested and transferred to Yekaterinburg. Three months later, Lvov and two other prisoners (Lopukhin and Prince Golitsyn) were released before the court under a written undertaking not to leave the place. The local war commissar,
Filipp Goloshchekin Filipp Isayevich Goloshchyokin (russian: Филипп Исаевич Голощёкин) (born Shaya Itsikovich) (russian: Шая Ицикович) ( – October 28, 1941) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, and party functiona ...
, intended to execute Lvov and the other prisoners, but was ordered not to by
Isaac Steinberg Isaac Nachman Steinberg (russian: Исаак Нахман Штейнберг; 13 July 1888 – 2 January 1957) was a lawyer, Socialist Revolutionary, politician, a leader of the Jewish Territorialist movement and writer in Soviet Russia and in ex ...
, the People's Commissar for Justice, a Left-Socialist Revolutionary while they were still in coalition with the Bolsheviks. Lvov immediately left Yekaterinburg, made his way to
Omsk Omsk (; rus, Омск, p=omsk) is the administrative center and largest city of Omsk Oblast, Russia. It is situated in southwestern Siberia, and has a population of over 1.1 million. Omsk is the third largest city in Siberia after Novosibirsk ...
, occupied by the anti-Bolshevik Czechoslovak Legion. The Provisional Siberian Government, headed by Pyotr Vologodsky, was formed in Omsk and instructed Lvov to leave for the United States (since it was believed that this country was capable of providing the fastest and most effective assistance to anti-Bolshevik forces) to meet with President Woodrow Wilson and other statesmen to inform them on the aims of the anti-Soviet forces and receiving assistance from former allies of Russia in the First World War. In October 1918 he travelled to the United States but was late as in November of the same year the First World War ended and preparations began for the peace conference in Paris, where the centre of world politics moved. Having failed to achieve any practical results in the United States, Lvov departed to France, where in 1918–1920 he was at the head of the Russian political meeting in Paris. He was at the source of the labor exchanges system to help Russian emigrants, transferred to their disposal the funds of Zemgor, stored in the National Bank of the United States. Later he left politics, living in Paris in poverty, working at handicraft and writing his memoirs.


Memorials

There is a memorial to Prince Lvov in Aleksin as well as a small exhibition on him in the town museum. In Popovka there is another memorial opposite his local church and a plaque on the wall of the local school he founded. He died in Boulogne-sur-Seine and is buried in
Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery (french: Cimetière russe de Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois) is part of the ''Cimetière de Liers'' and is called the Russian Orthodox cemetery, in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, Paris, France. History The ...
in France. A relative of his by the name of Prince Andre Nikita Lwoff (1901–1933), variously described as either Georgy Lvov's son or nephew, is buried in the old cemetery in Menton, France.


Further reading

Lvov wrote an autobiography, 'Воспоминания' ("Memories"), while in exile and a biography was also written in 1932 by Tikhon Polner entitled 'Жизненный путь князя Георгія Евгеніевича Львова. Личность. Взгляды. Условія дѣятельности' ("The Life Course of Prince Georgy Yevgenievich Lvov. Personality. Views. Conditions of Activity"). Neither has been translated but both have been reprinted and are still available in Russian.


Notes

Note on transliteration: An older French form, Lvoff, is used on his tombstone. Georgy can be written as Georgi and is sometimes seen in its translated form, George or Jorge.


References


Citations


Bibliography

* * * * *


External links

*
Lvov Days and memorials

Aleksin Museum of Art and Regional Studies

Publishers of Lvov's biographies
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lvov, Georgy Yevgenyevich 1861 births 1925 deaths People from Dresden People from the Kingdom of Saxony Rurikids Russian princes Progressive Party (Russia) politicians Russian Constitutional Democratic Party members Heads of government of the Russian Provisional Government Members of the 1st State Duma of the Russian Empire People of the Russian Revolution Leaders who took power by coup 20th-century presidents of Russia Russian anti-communists Moscow State University alumni Emigrants from the Russian Empire to France Burials at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery