Panina S.V. (1871-1957), political figure

Categories / Social Life/Personalia
Categories / Capital/Personalia
PANINA Sofia Vladimirovna, (1871, St. Petersburg - 1957), countess, educator and patron of the arts, political and public figure. Came from the family of Count Panin. Panina was one of the wealthiest women in Russia. Her maternal grandfather was a leading manufacturer, S.I. Maltsov, and her step-father was I.I. Petrunkevich, leader of the oppositional Liberal Left. She graduated from the Ekaterininsky Institute in St. Petersburg (1887) and the Higher Women’s (Bestuzhev) Courses (the mid-1890s). After an unsuccessful marriage (1890) and divorce with A.A. Polovtsov (son of A.A. Polovtsov), she devoted her life to education and philanthropy. She spent her own money to build and maintain the Ligovsky People's House (1903; currently the Railwaymen's Recreation Centre, 63 Tambovskaya Street), and personally directed its work. Panina held a chair on the boards of various charitable institutions, such as the Society for City Public School Student Aid, the Society for Low-Cost Housing for Women Seeking Employment, and a member of the Russian Society for the Protection of Women, in addition to other charitable organisations. After the February 1917 Revolution, she entered the Constitutional Democrat Party (in May she was elected a member of the party's Central Committee), and was also active as an elected member of the City Duma, and Vice-Minister for Public Assistance in the Provisional Government. From August, she was Minister of Public Education, becoming the first woman in Russia to enter government. After October 1917, she joined the Committee for Revolution and the Salvation of the Motherland, as well as the underground Provisional Government which held its sittings at her apartment (23 Sergievskaya Street, present-day Tchaikovsky Street). On 26 October (8 November) 1917 she withdrew the Ministry of Public Education's assets and funds, and invested them in a foreign bank before the Constituent Assembly was assembled. On November 28, she was arrested and put into the Vyborgskaya Women’s Prison. On 10 (23) December 1917 Panina's case went to trial at the first session of the Petrograd Revolutionary Tribunal. She was released from prison on 19 December 1917 (1 January 1918), after a required sum was paid by the Committee of the Higher Women’s Courses Financial Aid Society. In October 1918, she left for Don. On her way there, she lost the Panin and Maltsov family jewels, with which she had intended to support the White Army. She lived abroad as an emigrant from spring 1920. While in Prague, Panina established the Russian Hearth, a public centre for Russian emigrants (1924-38). From 1938, she lived in the USA. Panina wrote the memoir On the Outskirts of Petrograd, published in the New Journal, New York, 1957, № 48 и 49.

References: Гуревич Я. Я. Дело графини С. В. Паниной в революционном трибунале // Рус. богатство. 1917. № 11/12. С. 283-298; Петрункевич И. И. Из записок общественного деятеля: Воспоминания. М., 1993. (Рус. архив; Т. 11). (Архив рус. революции; Т. 21).

A. G. Kalmykov. Maltsov Sergey Ivanovich
Panina Sofia Vladimirovna
Petrunkevich Ivan Ilyich
Polovtsov Alexandуr Alexandrovich Jr.
the Maltsevs (Maltsovs)
the Panins
Tambovskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 63
Tchaikovskogo St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 23
Гуревич Я. Я. Дело графини С. В. Паниной в революционном трибунале // Рус. богатство, 1917
Петрункевич И. И. Из записок общественного деятеля: Воспоминания. М., 1993 Bestuzhev's Courses
February Revolution of 1917
City Duma
Provisional Government of 1917
1903