Mikhail Skorodumov
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General Major Mikhail Skorodumov (Михаил Федорович Скородумов) was a Russian general who participated in World War I, the White movement, and founded the Russian Corps in Serbia during World War II.
Skorodumov was born in 1892. He graduated the 1st Cadet Corps and the Pavlovsk Military Academy in 1912, as a sub-lieutenant of the Pavlovsk detachment. In 1914 with his detachment he was sent to the front. He was awarded the St. Vladimir order for bravery in battle, during which he was heavily wounded and consequently placed off duty. Skorodumov lobbied strongly to return to the front, and in 1915 was taken prisoner by the Germans. He unsuccesfully tried to escape three times, and after seven months of imprisonmnent returned to St. Petersburg in a prisoner exchange agreement (thanks partly to the lobbying of Great Dutchess Maria Pavlovna Romanoff). He was awarded the Cross of St. George for bravery.
In the wake of the October Revolution Skorodumov joins an underground anti-Bolshevik officer's organization. Upon its discovery by the Reds, he flees to join the Volunteer army in the south of Russia. He serves in the army as an invalid wearing a prothesis, and is additionally wounded in the leg during the siege of Kiev in 1919. After being interred in Poland he leaves for the army of General Pyotr Wrangel in the Crimea.
After Wrangel's defeat, Skorodumov evacuates with the army to Gallipoli, after which he moves to Bulgaria. As a commendant in the city of Lobech, leaves with General Alexander Kutepov to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. There in Yugoslavia, Skorodumov builds a memorial for the fallen Russian veterans of World War I.
In 1941, Skorodumov offers the German occupying forces in Yugoslavia to form the Russian Corps, an independent armed outfit of Russian white emigres with the purpose of defending the local Russian populace from the atrocities of communist guerillas. Skorodumov hopes that the Germans will agree to deploy the Corps on the Eastern front, where it would become the center of a Russian anti-communist liberation movement. The German forces agree to work with Skorodumov and appoint him as the head of the Russian Corps, only to be arrested by the Gestapo three days later for proclaiming the corps as an "independent" armed force. Skorodumov passed on command to Boris Shteifon whom the Germans approve of.
After leaving jail, Skorodumov demonstratively refuses to join the Corps and works for three years as a shoe maker. In 1944, Skorodumov decides to enlist in the Corps as a private, then goes to Austria to save his family from the advancing communist armies. He moves to the United States and pleads with the "Humanity Calls" organization to help the veterans of the Corps receive Displaced Person status, thus enabling them to seek refuge in the United States.
Skorodumov passed away in Los Angeles on the 15th of November, 1963, and was buried in the Hollywood cemetery.
