Mikhail rodzianko biography
Mikhail Vladimirovich Rodzianko was a Russian statesman of Ukrainian origin.
Mikhail Vladimirovich Rodzianko () was..
The Man Who Maybe Sparked a Revolution
In an attempt to calm his country’s spreading revolutionary turmoil, Nicholas II, Russia’s last tsar, sent a telegram on March 15, 1917, announcing his abdication.
It was addressed to Mikhail Rodzianko, a senior courtier, speaker of the imperial parliament, the Duma, and a prominent advocate of constitutional reform.
“There is no sacrifice I would not make for the sake of the true well-being and salvation of our Mother Russia.
For that reason, I am prepared to renounce the throne,” Nicholas II wrote.
Weeks before the decision, it was Rodzianko who had warned Nicholas II that the situation in Petrograd, the wartime name for St. Petersburg, Russia’s imperial capital, was spiraling out of control amid mass demonstrations, strikes, and mutiny in the armed forces.
A hundred years later, as Russia marks the centennial of the tsar’s abdication, Rodzianko’s great-grandson, Alexis Rodzianko, still lives with the actions of his famous ances