Piotr Shabelsky-Bork

Who was Piotr Shabelsky-Bork?

Piotr Nikolaevich Shabelsky-Bork was a Russian officer active in anti-Semitic politics, who became a member of a Russian Nazi movement. He is best known for his 1922 murder of Vladimir Nabokov, father of the Russian-American novelist of the same name.

Shabelsky-Bork was born in Kislovodsk to a family of wealthy landowners. His mother was a member of the Union of the Russian People, in which she played a leading role. She was an editor of a Black Hundreds periodical published in St Petersburg.

During the first world war Shabelsky-Bork served in the Russian cavalry in the rank of second lieutenant. After the October Revolution he was briefly imprisoned by the Bolsheviks and emigrated to Germany, where he became closely associated with General Vasily Biskupsky.

He was an important promoter, in the 1920s, of the notorious Protocols of Zion. He was a friend of Fyodor Viktorovich Vinberg, with whom he collaborated in the production of a yearbook, Luch Sveta. In the third issue of this periodical the complete text of the 1911 edition of Sergei Nilus's book is published.

In 1922, he was one of the two assassins responsible for the death of Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov. The intended target was Pavel Miliukov, a leader of the "Kadets", but when Nabokov attempted to stop the assassination, he was shot twice and died instantly. For the crime, Shabelsky-Bork received a sentence of fourteen years imprisonment, but was released shortly after commencing his sentence.