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Anton Ivanovich Denikin
December 16, 1872-August 8, 1947
Anton Denikin on the day of his resignation in 1920
Place of birth	Włocławek
Place of death	Ann Arbor, Michigan

Anton Ivanovich Denikin (Анто́н Ива́нович Дени́кин) (December 16, 1872 – August 8, 1947) was Lieutenant General of the Imperial Russian Army (1916) and one of the foremost generals of the White Russians in the civil war.

Contents 1 Childhood 2 Military Service 3 WWI 4 Civil War 4.1 Pogroms 5 Exile 6 References 6.1 Denikin's works 6.2 External Links

Denikin was born on December 7, 1872, in Szpetal Dolnyj village near the Polish city Włocławek (then part of the Russian empire). His father, Ivan Efimovich Denikin, had been born a serf in the province of Saratov. Sent as a recruit to do 25 years of military service, Ivan Denikin became an officer on the 22nd year of his army service, in 1856. He retired from the army in 1869 with the rank of a major. In 1869 Ivan married a poor Polish seamstress, Elżbieta Wrzesińska.

Denikin was educated at the Kiev Military School and the Academy of the General Staff and first saw active service during the 1905 Russo-Japanese War.

By the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 Denikin was a Major General and in command of the Kiev military district. He joined the Eighth Army initially as Deputy Chief of Staff in September and was sent to Galicia commanding the 4th Rifle Brigade.

In 1916 he was appointed to command the VIII Corps and lead troops in Romania during the last successful Russian campaign of the war, the Brusilov Offensive. Following the February Revolution and the overthrow of the Czar he became Chief of Staff to Mikhail Alekseev, then Aleksei Brusilov, and finally Lavr Georgevich Kornilov. Denikin supported the attempted coup of his commander, the Kornilov Affair, in September 1917 and was arrested and imprisoned with him. After this Alekseev would be reappointed commander-in-Chief.

Following the October Revolution both Denikin and Kornilov escaped to Novocherkassk in southern Russia and, with other Tsarist officers, formed the Volunteer Army, initially commanded by Alekseev. Kornilov was killed in April 1918 near Ekaterinodar and the Volunteer Army came under Denikin's command. There was some sentiment to place Grand Duke Nicholas in overall command, but Denikin was not interested in sharing power. In the face of a Communist counter-offensive he withdrew his forces back towards the Don area in what was known as the Ice March. Denikin led one final assault of the southern White forces in their final push to capture Moscow in the summer of 1919. Overstretched, his army was decisively defeated at Orel in October, some 400km south of Moscow. The White forces in southern Russia would be in constant retreat thereafter, eventually reaching the Crimea in March 1920.

Facing increasingly sharp criticism and emotionally exhausted, Denikin resigned in April, 1920 in favor of General Baron P. N. Wrangel. Denikin left the Crimea by ship to Constantinople and then to London. He spent a few months in England, then moved to Belgium, and later to Hungary.

The retreat of the White Army unleashed a wave of anti-Jewish violence. Gregor Bostunich, a Russian citizen born in Kiev of Baltic German and Serbian parents, lectured Denikin’s armies on the dangers of world Jewry.^[1] Denikin resisted demands by human rights and Jewish organizations, and by British Secretary of State for War Winston Churchill, to issue specific orders against anti-Jewish massacres. In September, 1919, Churchill urged Deniken, both through the British military mission to South Russia, and in direct correspondence "to do everything in [his] power to prevent a massacre of the Jews in the liberated districts [and to issue] a proclamation against anti-Semitism." In October, 1919, with Denikin's order purging Jews from the volunteer forces (order #21,322), the campaign of pogroms against the Jewish population of Ukraine and Russia intensified.^[2] When Denikin at last issued orders against pogroms, these orders were effectively ignored and no officers responsible for the atrocities were brought to justice. ^{[3] [4]} (At least 100,000, perhaps as many as 250,000 Jewish civilians were massacred and 500,000 left homeless as the result of pogroms in the course of the Civil War. According to Nahum Gergel's 1951 study of the pogroms in Ukraine (quoted by Solzhenitsin in his book "Two Hundred Years Together"), out of an estimated 887 pogroms, 17% were committed by the White Army. Other sources have counted approximately 2,000 pogroms committed during the Civil War, with the White Army directly responsible an undetermined number.)

From 1926 Denikin lived in France. Although he continued to remain bitterly opposed to Russia's Communist government, he chose to remain discreetly on the periphery of exile politics, spending most of his time writing and lecturing. However, this did not prevent the Soviets from unsuccessfully targeting him for abduction in the same effort that snared exile General A.P. Kutepov in 1930 and later General E.K. Miller in 1937. White Against Red - The Life of General Anton Denikin gives possibly the definitive account of the intrigues during these early Soviet "wet-ops."

Denikin was a talented writer, and even before World War I had written several pieces in which he analytically criticized the shortcomings of his beloved Russian Army. His voluminous writings after the Russian Civil War (written while living in exile) are remarkable for their analytical tone and candor and are a "must read" to anyone interested in the Russian Civil War. Since he enjoyed writing and most of his income was derived from it, Denikin started to consider himself a writer and developed close friendships with several Russian emigre authors--among them Ivan Bunin (a Nobel Laurate), Ivan Shmelev, and Aleksandr Kuprin.

Although respected by most of the community of Russian exiles, Denikin was disliked by emigres of both political extremes, the right and the left.

With the fall of France in 1940, Denikin left Paris in order to avoid imprisonment by the Germans. Although he was eventually captured, he declined all attempts to co-opt him for use in Nazi anti-Soviet propaganda. The Germans did not press the matter and Denikin was allowed to remain in rural exile. Although not formally part of the resistance, his activities would certainly have been sufficient to cause his arrest had they been fully known to the Nazi authorities.^{[citation needed]} Diary entries kept by his wife during this period also make it clear that he was appalled by Nazi anti-Semitism, a fact that may shed light on his actual attitude towards the pogroms of the Russian Civil War.

At the conclusion of the war, correctly anticipating their likely fate at the hands of Stalin's Soviet Union, Denikin attempted to persuade the Western Allies not to forcibly repatriate Soviet POWs. He was largely unsuccessful in his effort.

From 1945 until his death in 1947, Denikin lived in the United States, in New York City. On August 8, 1947, at the age of 74, Denikin died while vacationing near Ann Arbor, Michigan.

General Denikin was buried with military honors in Detroit. His remains were later transferred to St. Vladimir's Cemetery in Jackson, New Jersey. His wife, Xenia Vasilievna Chizh, was buried at Saint Genevieve de Bois cemetery near Paris.

His daughter Marina Denikina applied for and was granted Russian citizenship in 2005. On October 3, 2005, in accordance with the wishes of his daughter and by authority of President Vladimir Putin of Russia the remains of General Denikin were transferred from the United States and buried at the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow. Marina Denikina died November 17, 2005, at her home in Versailles, near Paris.

1. Anton Ivanovich Denikin. Biographies. Answers Corporation, 2006. Answers.com 01 May. 2007. http://www.answers.com/topic/anton-ivanovich-denikin
2. The standard reference is Dimitry V. Lehovich, White Against Red - the Life of General Anton Denikin, New York, W.W. Norton, 1974. This book is also available in Russian in two versions: then abridged text is Belye Protiv Krasnykh, Moscow, Voskresenie publishers, 1992. The second, unabridged, is Denikin - Zhizn' Russkogo Ofitsera, Moscow, Evrasia publishers, 2004.
3. Grey M. Bourdier J. Les Armes blanches. Paris, 1968
4. Grey M. La campagne de glace. Paris. 1978
5. Grey M. Mon père le géneral Denikine. Paris, 1985
6. Kenez P. Civil War in South Russia. 1917-1920. The defeat of the Whites. Berkeley, 1972
7. Kenez Peter Civil War in South Russia. 1918. The first Year of the Voluntary Army. Berkeley,Los Angeles, 1971
8. Luckett R. The White Generals: An Account of the White Movement in the South Russia. L., 1971
9. Additional reference: Ukraine: a History by Orest Subtelny
10. (Russian) Ипполитов Г. М. Деникин — М.: Молодая гвардия, 2006 (серия ЖЗЛ) ISBN 5-235-02885-6

Denikin wrote several books, including The Russian Turmoil (5 volumes), Old Army, The Career of a Tsarist Officer: Memoirs, 1872-1916 and The Road of a Russian Officer (unfinished, published posthumously in 1953).

See also the list of references in Russian edition of Wikipedia.

• Pogroms in Southern Russia; Massacres of Jews in Several Towns Follow Retreat of Denikin's Army; New York Times (Feb. 26, 1920)

• Jewish Eyewitness Accounts of Pogroms Committed by Denikin's Army

• Berkman, Alexander; "FASTOV THE POGROMED" from The Bolshevik Myth, New York: Boni and Liveright, 1925