Chudnovskii, Solomon

Born Mar. 13 (25), 1849, in Kherson; died Aug. 21 (Sept. 3), 1912, in Odessa. Revolutionary populist.

The son of a merchant, Chudnovskii graduated from the Kherson Gymnasium in 1868. He was expelled from the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy for his part in the student unrest of 1868–69 and was sent back to Kherson, where he organized a number of activist groups. In 1871, Chudnovskii moved to Odessa, where he became a member of the Chaikovskii circle.

Studying in Vienna in 1872 and 1873, Chudnovskii became close with the Austrian Social Democrats. Upon his return to Russia, he and A. I. Zheliabov were in charge of transporting illegal literature into the country. He was arrested in Odessa on Jan. 27,1874, and sentenced in the Trial of the 193 to five years at hard labor, which was commuted to exile in Tobol’sk Province.

While in Siberia, Chudnovskii studied peasant society, took part in geographical expeditions, and contributed to the journal Severnyi vestnik and the newspaper Vostochnoe obozrenie. He returned to Odessa in 1893 and served as secretary of the board of the Southern Russia Printing Society. In 1905 he became a Constitutional Democrat. Chudnovskii contributed to the journals Byloe, Minuvshie gody, and Vestnik Evropy.