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.