Nikolai Yevgenyevich Markov

Nikolai Yevgenyevich Markov , known as Markov II or Markov the Second (2 April 1866 – 25 April 1945), was a Russian right wing politician who was a leading figure in the Union of the Russian People (UPR).

Born in Simferopol, where his father worked as director of a local gymnasium, Markov came from a land-owning noble background, the Markovs owning land in Shchigrovsky Uyezd in the Kursk region, while his mother's family, of German roots, were nobles from the Kaluga Governorate. Nikolai Markov was also a trained engineer, graduating from the in St. Petersburg in 1888. He entered politics in 1905 when he formed a defence group for the upper middle classes called the Party of Civil Order, whilst also starting the journals Kurskaia Byl and Zemschchina. He became a founder of the UPR and was noted as its most formidable leader, using his membership of the State Duma of the Russian Empire to attack both capitalism and socialism. One of the leading antisemitic voices in the Russian Empire, he was known for his frequent tirades against Jews, whom he predicted would be wiped out in a mass pogrom.

He became URP leader in 1910 following the departure of Aleksandr Dubrovin and his followers and took over editorship of the pro-Vladimir Purishkevich journal Vestnik Soyuza Russkogo Naroda. He used his position as leader to argue for a restoration of absolutism and in the First World War supported a separate peace treaty between Russia and Germany, even attempting to get the Germans involved in a conspiracy to save the House of Romanov after the revolutions. Markov also played a leading role in the conspiracy that resulted in the murder of Constitutional Democratic Party politician Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov. His antisemitism grew more pronounced in the 1930s and he undertook lecture tours and propaganda duties for the Nazis on the subject. Markov died in Germany shortly before the war ended.