Sergei Nilus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
The introduction to this article is too long. To comply with Wikipedia's lead section guidelines, it should be abridged. Please discuss this issue on the talk page and read the layout guide to make sure the section will be inclusive of all essential details. |
Sergei Alexandrovich Nilus (also Sergiei, Sergyei, Sergius, Serge); Russian language: Сергей Александрович Нилус; 1862-1929) was a Russian religious writer and self-described mystic. He was responsible for publishing for the first time "in full" The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Russia in 1905 as "Chapter XII" (the last chapter) to an edition of his book about the coming of the anti-Christ; in 1903 an alleged "abridged" version had been published in Znamya (newspaper).
The son of Swiss immigrants, Nilus was a landowner in the government of Orel. He studied law and graduated from the University of Moscow, and was a magistrate in Transcaucasia. He later moved to Biarritz, living there with his mistress, Natalya Komarovskaya, until his estates were bankrupt. After his bankruptcy he converted to Orthodox Christianity and returned to Russia where, in 1901 or 1902, he published a book Velikoe v malom i antikhrist (The Great withn the Small and Antichrist). The text of the Protocols appeared as chapter 12 of the edition of this book which was published in 1905. [1]
A secret investigation ordered by the newly appointed chairman of the Council of Ministers Pyotr Stolypin soon determined that the Protocols were authored by operatives of the Okhranka in Paris. The details were not made public to avoid compromising the chief of secret service Pyotr Rachkovsky and his agents, but when Nicholas II learned of the results, he requested: "The Protocols should be confiscated, a good cause cannot be defended by dirty means". Despite of the order, or because of the "good cause", numerous reprints proliferated.
Nilus circulated several editions of the Protocols in Russia as part of an antisemitic campaign. Though the early prints were in Russia, the Protocols quickly spread to the rest of Europe by Russian expatriates after the 1917 revolution. Some of them claimed that it provided proof that the Jews were behind the Russian Revolution. Another expatriate Russian, Boris Brasol, brought it to the United States around 1920 where it became the core of Henry Ford's antisemitic program. By the time Nilus died, Europe had been saturated by millions of copies of the Protocols.
Contents |
[edit] Works
- Velikoe v malom i antikhrist, kak blizkaia politicheskaia vozmozhnost.
- Zapiski pravoslavnago. [Russian title romanized]
- (TSarskoe Selo, Tip. TSarskoselskago Komiteta Krasnago Kresta, 1905) [imprint]
- 2. izd. ispr. i dop. [edition]
- 417 p. [description]
- Prophecies [subject]
- Protocoly sobran??ii S?ionskikh mudretsov: str. [chapter XII title romanized]
- Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion [chpter XII title transliterated into English]
- [325]-417'(= 92 pages)' [chapter XII pages]
[edit] References
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
- by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln
- (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982)
- ISBN 951-9107-41-X
Michael Hagemeister: Vladimir Solov’ev and Sergej Nilus: Apocalypticism and Judeophobia. In: Wil van den Bercken, Manon de Courten, Evert van der Zweerde (eds.): Vladimir Solov’ev: Reconciler and Polemicist (Leuven: Peeters, 2000), pp. 287-296. ISBN 90-429-0959-5
Michael Hagemeister: Sergei Nilus. In: Antisemitism. A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, ed. By Richard E. Levy, vol. 2 (Santa Barbara, CA.: ABC-Clio, 2005), pp. 508-510. ISBN 1-85109-439-3
