Pavel Milyukov - Pre-revolutionary Career

Pre-revolutionary Career

Milyukov was born in Moscow in the middle-class family of an architect who claimed in his autobiography to be a nobleman from the House of Milukoff.

Milyukov studied history and humanities at the Moscow University, where he was influenced by the liberal ideas of Konstantin Kavelin and Boris Chicherin. He was expelled for taking part in student riots, but was readmitted and allowed to take his degree. He specialized in the study of Russian history and received the degree of Master in History for a learned work on the State Economics of Russia in the First Quarter of the 18th Century.

He lectured with great success at the university and at a training institute for girl teachers. These lectures were afterwards expanded by him in his book Outlines of Russian Culture (3 vols., 1896-1903, translated into German). He also started an association for “home university reading,” and, as its first president, edited the first volume of its programme, which was widely read in Russian intellectual circles. His liberal opinions brought him into conflict with the educational authorities, and he was dismissed in 1894 after one of the ever-recurrent university “riots.” He was even imprisoned for some time as a political agitator. The last volume of Outlines of Russian Culture was actually finished in jail, where he spent six months for his political speech at a private event (1901).

When released from jail, Milyukov went to Bulgaria, and was appointed professor in the university of Sofia, where he lectured in Bulgarian with great success. He also delivered courses of lectures in the United States  at summer sessions in Chicago and later for the Lowell Institute lectures in Boston. Milyukov also contributed to the clandestine journal Liberation in 1902.

When the First Russian Revolution started three years later, he founded the Constitutional Democratic party, represented it in the State Duma, and drafted the Vyborg Manifesto, calling for political freedom, reforms and passive resistance to the governmental policy. He was invited to contribute an analysis of contemporary Russia, based on his lectures at the University of Chicago and for the Lowell Institute, to the University of Chicago Press; Russia and Its Crisis, which he penned in fluent English, was published by the Press in August 1905.

With the outbreak of World War I, Milyukov swung to the right, promoting patriotic policies of national defense, insisting his younger son (who subsequently died in battle) volunteer for the army, and campaigning for the formation of the Progressive Bloc of moderate leaders. Milyukov was regarded as a staunch supporter of the conquest of Istanbul. His opponents mockingly called him "Milyukov of Dardanelles". In 1916, however, he again moved to the left, sharply criticising the government for its inefficiency.