Eduard Eduardovich Essen

Essen, Eduard Eduardovich 

Born Jan. 14, 1879, at Mar’ino station, Kharkov Province; died Apr. 23, 1931, in Leningrad. Participant in the revolutionary movement in Russia. Member of the Communist Party from 1898.

Essen was the son of a member of the dvorianstvo (nobility) who worked as a transportation engineer for a railroad. Essen studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. He graduated from the law faculty of the University of St. Petersburg in 1911 and engaged in party work in many cities. Essen was a member of the St. Petersburg committee of the RSDLP in 1905. During World War I he conducted revolutionary propaganda among soldiers of the Northern Front. He was a member of the Vasil’evskii Island raion committee of the RSDLP(B) in Petrograd in 1917 and chairman of the soviet.

After the October Revolution of 1917, Essen served as deputy people’s commissar for state control. Between 1918 and 1924 he engaged in political work in the Red Army and taught at military schools. From 1925 to 1929 he was rector of the Academy of Arts in Leningrad. Essen was granted a personal pension in 1929.

REFERENCES

Lenin, V. I. Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed. (See Index Volume, part 2, p. 489).
Sultanova, E. “E. E. Essen.” In Geroi Oktiabria, part 2. Leningrad, 1967.