Grigory Semyonov (13 September 1890-30 August 1946) was the Ataman of the Baikal Cossacks and became a commander of the White Army in Russia during the Russian Civil War. He was executed in 1946 after being an Axis collaborator during World War II.
Biography[]
Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov was born on 13 September 1890 in Kuranzha, Transbaikal Oblast, in the Russian Empire (present-day Ononsky District, Zabaykalsky Krai, Siberia, Russia). He was a member of the Baikal Cossacks, and was a Buryat. Semyonov joined the Imperial Russian Army in 1908, but was an outsider among his fellow officers because he was not of Russian ethnicity. Semyonov became a leader of the White Army after the October Revolution of 1917 and led a revolution against the Bolsheviks, fighting against the Russians until he was forced to flee to Manchuria. In 1919 he became the Ataman of the Baikal Cossacks and assisted other cossacks in fighting against the Bolsheviks of Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin. Semyonov was supported by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Siberian Intervention of 1919-1921, and was a rival of fellow White Army admiral Alexander Kolchak. He was exiled in September 1921 after the defeat of his forces, and moved to Japan and later to the United States. He was given a pension by Japan and became an intelligence agent for the Japanese during World War II. In September 1945 Semyonov was captured by Soviet paratroopers and in August 1946 he was killed by hanging by the Soviet government.