Popov, Mikhail Rodionovich

Popov, Mikhail Rodionovich 

Born Nov. 14 (26), 1851, in the village of Glafirovka, in what is now Voroshilovgrad Oblast; died Jan. 4(17), 1909, in St. Petersburg. Russian revolutionary and Narodnik (Populist).

The son of a priest, Popov studied at the Ekaterinoslav Theological Seminary from 1868 to 1872 and at the Medical and Surgical Academy from 1872 to 1876. He participated in the “going to the people” movement in 1876 and was one of the founders of the Land and Liberty Society. When Land and Liberty split in 1879, he joined the Black Repartition group. Together with D. Butsinskii, he established ties with the People’s Will organization and headed a revolutionary circle in Kiev, which included members of the People’s Will and Black Repartition. Popov was arrested in February 1880 and condemned to death in July of the same year; his sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life. He was in the Kara Penal Colony until 1882, whereupon he was transferred to the Alekseev Ravelin. From 1884 to October 1905 he was confined in the Shlissel’burg Fortress. Popov was the author of Notes of a Land and Liberty Member (1933).

REFERENCES

Gallereia shlissel’burgskikh uznikov, part 1. St. Petersburg, 1907.
Figner, V. N. Zapechatlennyi trud, vols. 1–2. Moscow, 1964.