Maklakov, Vasilii

Maklakov, Vasilii Alekseevich 

Born May 10 (22), 1869; died July 15, 1957, in Zürich. Russian political figure. Son of a professor. Passed examinations at the law faculty of Moscow University without attending lectures (1896). Attorney at law from 1895. Important lawyer; student of F. N. Plevako.

Maklakov appeared for the defense in major trials after 1905 (the Vyborg, Tagiev, and Beilis trials). He was a member of the central committee of the Constitutional Democrat (Cadet) party from 1906. He was a deputy from Moscow to the second through fourth State Dumas. With O. Ia. Pergament, he published the Mandate of the State Duma in 1907. In February 1917 he became commissioner of the provisional committee of the State Duma in the Ministry of Justice. He supported P. N. Miliukov on the question of continuing the war to a “victorious conclusion.” Maklakov was ambassador to France in 1917. After the October Revolution of 1917 he was a White émigré. He has written books on the history of social thought and the liberal movement in Russia at the turn of the 20th century.

WORKS

Pervaia Gosudarstvennaia duma. Paris, 1939.
Vtoraia Gosudarstvennaia duma. Paris, 1942.
Vlast’ i obshchestvennost’ na zakate staroi Rossii, vols. 1-3. Paris, 1936.
Iz vospominanii. New York, 1954.