Egor Lazarev

Egor Egorovich Lazarev (, pseudonym Brovinsky, April 12, 1855 – September 23, 1937) was a Russian revolutionary, populist, member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, delegate of the Russian Constituent Assembly, Minister of Education for the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, and writer.

Life Lazarev was born on April 12, 1855, in the village of Grachevka, Buzuluksky Uyezd in the Samara Governorate into a free peasant family, whose father (Yegor's grandfather) was a serf. By the time of the general abolition of serfdom, Yegor was six years old. At the age of seven he left his village to study in the Samara Parish School, and then became a participant in meetings of the Samara intelligentsia, which took place in the evenings in the sewing workshop of his aunt, Anna. In 1874 he was arrested and excluded from the Samara Gymnasium, but was later acquitted of spreading propaganda.

As part of the 159th Guriy Infantry Regiment, Lazarev participated in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), participated in the Battle of Kars. In 1880 he became a non-commissioned officer and met with Leo Tolstoy. In 1884, Lazarev was arrested for participating in the Narodnaya Volya military organization, and was visited by Tolstoy in Butyrka prison. Lazarev was administratively exiled to the Trans-Baikal village of Tataurovskoe for three years. Lazarev was released on July 8, 1887, with the prohibition of residing in a number of cities of the Russian Empire. He returned to his native village, but a year later, on February 19, 1888, was again arrested in Buzuluk because of his links with Narodnaya Volya. In 1894 he moved to London to unite isolated revolutionary groups. At the station, he was met by Nikolai Tchaikovsky. but in 1907 he again left for Switzerland. In 1909, Lazarev returned to St. Petersburg, where he began working as a secretary for the editors of the Knowledge Herald magazine. In 1910 he was arrested and for the third time exiled to Siberia. Lazarev returned to Russia in 1917 where he witnessed Lenin's arrival by train.

He did not accept the October Revolution, however, and struggled against the Bolsheviks. He became Minister of Education in the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly in Samara Governorate. In 1919 he left Russia for Prague, where he published the journal Volya Rossii (The Will of Russia). He died in Prague in 1937.