Kutepov, Aleksandr

Kutepov, Aleksandr Pavlovich 

Born Sept. 16 (28), 1882, in Novgorod Province; died 1930. Military figure of the Russian counterrevolution in southern Russia; White Guard general of the infantry (1920). Son of a member of the dvorianstvo (nobility or gentry).

Kutepov graduated from the St. Petersburg Infantry Junker School in 1904. He fought in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 and then served in the Life Guards of the Preobrazhenskii Regiment, with which he participated in World War I (1914–18), commanding a company, a battalion, and a regiment and advancing to the rank of colonel. Kutepov served in the White Guard Volunteer Army from the moment it was formed, advancing from company commander to chief of the First Infantry Division. He became governor-general of the Black Sea after the capture of Novorossiisk in August 1918; he carried out brutal repressions against the population under his jurisdiction. From the end of January 1919, Kutepov commanded the I Army Corps in Denikin’s army and then a corps and the First Army in Wrangel’s army.

After the rout of Wrangel’s army in November 1920, he evacuated with the remnants of the White Guard troops to Gallipoli (Turkey); in late 1921 he went to Bulgaria, from where he was exiled after the September Revolution of 1923. While living in emigration in Paris, Kutepov was the leader of the supporters of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich. After Wrangel’s death in 1928, he assumed the leadership of the White Guard Russian All-Army Union (ROVS) and tried to step up its anti-Soviet activity. On Jan. 26, 1930, Kutepov disappeared from Paris.