Nobility Entrepreneurship and Politics in Late Imperial Russia

This path breaking study is the first biography in any language of the Russian industrialist, entrepreneur, and political leader Nikolai Fedorovich von Ditmar (1865-1919). Scion of a Baltic German noble family, von Ditmar studied physical sciences with the famous chemist Dmitrii Mendeleev and pursued a career as a railway engineer before establishing his own industrial enterprise in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov. Thriving in the Russian Empire's dynamic economy, von Ditmar quickly became a civic leader and held high political appointments, including a seat in the State Council of the Russian Empire, the upper house of the legislature that sat from 1906. Possessed of an indefatigable energy, von Ditmar played a leading role in the industrial economy of World War I and supported the anti-communist military forces that contested Lenin's Bolsheviks for control of Russia. Von Ditmar's life presents a kaleidoscopic view of Russia at a time of immense transition and transformation. This biography, introduced by von Ditmar's great-granddaughter, illustrates the true dynamism of the Russian Empire and the many forces that propelled it to triumph and tragedy.