Nikolay Gredeskul: professor of the Russian revolutionary epoch

The article examines the evolution of political views held by Nikolay A. Gredeskul (1864 - 1941), a nobleman of Moldavian (Moldovan) origin. During the crisis of the 1905 Russian revolution he was known as a university professor, a lawyer, a public figure, a political journalist, and a member of State Duma. The evolution of his political views is analyzed in connection with his biography as well as in the context of political, revolutionary and military developments in Russia. The article focuses on the critical analysis of his major journalistic writings. By the beginning of the 20th century N.A. Gredeskul had been formed as a liberal public figure. After the 1905 Russian revolution he would make his political views either more leftist and revolutionary or more extreme right and conservatory. These oscillations were most vividly seen in how he treated the national question. N.A. Gredeskul’s more radical leftist views were triggered by the collapse of the autocracy, the defeat of the White movement and the final establishment of the Bolsheviks’ power in Russia. He accepted the Soviet rule without visible hesitation, with his ideas expressed in his works as early as in the 1920s being close to Bolshevism, far from the views he had held on the eve of and during the 1905 revolution. N.A. Gredeskul’s life and journalism are a vivid illustration of social and political processes undergoing in Russia’s revolutionary epoch. The development of his social and political views, his publicist works reflect those transformations in outlook that Russian intelligentsia, particularly, professoriate went through during revolutionary transition from imperial civilization to the soviet one. 1905 Russian Revolution, World War I, State Duma, intelligentsia, professoriate, social movement, political journalism, liberalism, national question, Jewish question, Professor Nikolay A. Gredeskul.