Geisman, Platon

Geisman, Platon Aleksandrovich 

(after 1916, Platon Aleksandrovich Geismans). Born Feb. 20 (Mar. 4), 1853; died Jan. 27, 1919, in Petrograd. Russian military historian, general of infantry (1913).

Geisman was of Belgian descent; his father was a professor of history. He graduated from the Second Konstantin Military School in 1872 and commanded a battalion of the Serbian Army in the Serbian-Montenegran-Turkish War of 1876 and in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. He graduated from the General Staff Academy in 1881; from 1892 to 1907 he was a professor of military history at that academy. After 1907 he commanded a division and from 1911 to 1914 a corps. After January 1915 he was the head of the Kazan Military District. Beginning in 1918 he worked at Petrograd University and the State United Archive Fund.

WORKS

Slaviano-turetskaia bor’ba 1876-1877-1878 i ee znachenie v istorii razvitiia Vostochnogo voprosa, parts 1-2. St. Petersburg, 1887-89.
Kratkii kurs istorii voennogo iskusstva v srednie i novye veka, 2nd ed. St. Petersburg, 1907.
Voina, ee znachenie v zhizni naroda i gosudarstva. St. Petersburg, 1896.
General’nyi shtab: Kratkii istoricheskii ocherk ego vozniknoveniia i razvitiia, vol. 1, part 1. St. Petersburg, 1903.
Russko-turetskaia voina 1877-78. St. Petersburg, 1903.
Opyt issledovaniia taktiki massovykh armii. St. Petersburg, 1894.

A. G. KAVTARADZE