Two Siberian periods in the life of the former Chief Procurator of the Most Holy Synod V.N. Lvov

The author focuses on the little-known Siberian period in the life of Vladimir N. Lvov (1872 - 1930) -the former member of the III and IV State Dumas of Russia, the Chief Procurator of the Most Holy Synod (March -July 1917). The article is mostly based on the records of the archive of the Federal Security Service Directorate of the Russian Federation in Tomsk region and the materials of newspapers, published during the Russian Civil War. V.N. Lvov left revolutionary Petrograd and ran to the Volga region from where he was later evacuated because of the war. Like other refugees, the Lvov family headed to the East and temporarily settled in Tomsk. There began the first period of V.N. Lvov’s life in Siberia (autumn 1918 - December 1919). The author refers to the facts from his interviews and public speeches in Tomsk, and those published in Omskbrochures where Lvov reminisced on the events that happened in Petrograd in 1917. The defeat of the White Army forced Lvov to leave Tomsk and move abroad. In Paris he joined the immigrant movement, that advocated the acknowledgement of the Soviet government in Russia. In 1922 he returned to the Soviet republic and joined the Renovationists movement that was used by the Bolsheviks to destroy the Russian Orthodox Church. The second Siberian period in the life of V.N. Lvov (1927-1930) began when he was arrested by the Joint State Political Department in Moscow and sent to Tomsk into the three-year exile. There, he taught foreign languages, but he lost his job in 1929 and dragged on a miserable existence. In February 1930, he was arrested by the Joint State Political Department (OGPU) of the Tomsk Region and accused of the counter-revolutionary actions within “an anti-Soviet group”. He was under arrest for seven months waiting for the sentence. After the Plenipotent Office of the Joint State Political Department in the Western-Siberian Kraihad found out that Tomsk chekists (secret service agents) falsified political cases, some of them (including the case of V.N. Lvov) were reopened. All of the accused were acquitted by the resolution of the Plenipotent Office of OGPU in the Western-Siberian Krai and set free. But a few days earlier, on September 20, 1930, V.N. Lvov died in the hospital ward of the Special purpose detention center in Tomsk. He was buried on the Voznesensky cemetery that was destroyed later. All in all, Lvov had to spend five years in Siberia. But he was not engaged in any kind of political or social activity when he was there as a refugee during the Russian Civil War or in his administrative exile under the Soviet rule. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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