Petrunkevich I. I. (1844-1928), public figure

Categories / Social Life/Personalia
PETRUNKEVICH Ivan Ilyich (1844-1928) was a public figure and statesman. He was a father-in-law of Countess S.V. Panina. On graduating from the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University (1866), he worked in institutions of Country Councils, serving as one of the initiators of the movement of country councils in Russia. In 1879, he was under police supervision, not allowed to live in St. Petersburg (allowed to return to St. Petersburg in October 1904). From 1886, he lived in Tver Province, maintaining connections with St. Petersburg scientists and public figures. In 1898-1904 he worked for Pravo St. Petersburg Magazine and in 1905-06 on staff of Polar Star Journal. In 1902-03, Petrunkevich participated in illegal conferences and congresses of members of country councils held in St. Petersburg. He was one of the founders and leaders of the Union of Liberation (1903), and organizer of the congress of all the country councils held on 6-9 November 1904 (the Congress was not allowed by the Government and was held in St. Petersburg in private flats). In June 1905, he was included in the delegation of Congresses of Country and City Activists sent to Emperor Nicholas II. He participated in the creation of the Constitutional Democratic Party (1905). In 1909-15 Petrunkevich was in charge of its Central Committee; its meetings were held in the flat of Petrunkevich in Baskov Lane, he was also an organizer of the 2nd Congress of the Party (held in October 1905 in St. Petersburg; Petrunkevich personally coordinated the event with the minister of home affairs P.N. Durnovo). Petrunkevich was a publisher of the party newspaper Speech (1908-17). He was a deputy of the First State Duma in 1906; and in charge of the faction of Constitutional Democrats. He was imprisoned in Kresty Prison after the signing of Vyborg Proclamation in 1909. Later on he visited St. Petersburg from time to time because of his ill health (also after the February Revolution of 1917). After October 1917, he lived in the Crimea, emigrated in 1919. Petrunkevich wrote memoirs From the Notes of the Public Figure (Berlin, 1934).

D. A. Makarov. Durnovo Peter Nikolaevich
Nicholas II, Emperor
Panina Sofia Vladimirovna
Petrunkevich Ivan Ilyich
Baskov Lane/Saint Petersburg, city
State University, St. Petersburg
Rech (The Speech), newspaper
State Duma
Kresty Prison.