Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov
| Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov | |
|---|---|
Ataman Semyonov
|
|
| Born |
September 25, 1890 Kuranzha Village, Transbaikal Oblast, Russian Empire |
| Died | August 30, 1946 (aged 55) Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR |
| Allegiance |
 Russian Empire Russian Republic
|
| Service/ |
Imperial Russian Army White Movement
|
| Years of service | 1911–21 |
| Rank | Lieutenant General |
| Battles/wars |
World War I Russian Civil War |
| Awards | Order of St. George (twice) |
Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov, or Semenov (Russian: Григо́рий Миха́йлович Семёнов; September 13 (25), 1890 – August 30, 1946), was a Japanese-supported leader of the White movement in Transbaikal and beyond from December 1917 to November 1920, Lieutenant General and Ataman of Baikal Cossacks (1919).
Semyonov was born in the Transbaikal region of eastern Siberia. His father, Mikhail Petrovich Semyonov, was of partial Buryat descent. Semyonov was a fluent Mongolian and Buryat language speaker. He joined the Imperial Russian Army in 1908, and graduated from Orenburg Military School in 1911. He was commissioned as a yesaul (Cossack ensign) and distinguished himself in battle against the Germans and Austro-Hungarians in World War I, earning the Saint George's Cross for courage.
According to Pyotr Wrangel:
Semenov was a Transbaikalian Cossack – dark and thickset, and of the rather alert Mongolian type. His intelligence was of a specifically Cossack calibre, and he was an exemplary soldier, especially courageous when under the eye of his superior. He knew how to make himself popular with Cossacks and officers alike, but he had his weaknesses in a love of intrigue and indifference to the means by which he achieved his ends. Though capable and ingenious, he had received no education, and his outlook was narrow. I have never been able to understand how he came to play a leading role.
He was somewhat of an outsider among the his fellow officers because of his ethnicity. While serving in the Caucasus in World War I he met another officer shunned by his peers, Baron Ungern-Sternberg, whose eccentric nature and disregard of the rules of etiquette and decorum repelled others. He and Sternberg tried to organize a regiment of Assyrian Christians to aid in the fight against the Turks. In July 1917 Semyonov left the Caucasus and was appointed Commissar of the Provisional Government in the Baikal region, responsible for recruiting a regiment of Buryat volunteers.
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