Alexander Kerensky

Alexander Kerensky married Olga Lvovna Baranovskaya, the daughter of a Russian general, in 1904 and together they had two sons, Oleg and Gleb. Both their sons became professional engineers later on. The couple ended their marriage with a divorce in 1939.

Upon divorcing Olga Baranovskaya, Kerensky married the former Australian journalist Lydia "Nell" Tritton at Martins Creek, Pennsylvania. He later moved to Australia with her and her family as she became terminally ill. She died after suffering a heart attack in 1946.

In 1970, Alexander Kerensky died at St. Luke's Hospital in New York City due to arteriosclerotic heart disease. After the local Russian churches refused his burial, his body was taken to London and was eventually buried at the non-denominational Putney Vale Cemetery.

Alexander Kerensky was born on 4 May 1881, in Simbirsk (currently known as Ulyanovsk). He was the eldest son of Mikhailovich Kerensky, a teacher by profession, and Nadezhda Aleksandrovna. His father also owned a local gymnasium and later became the inspector of public schools.

Kerensky’s father was the teacher of Vladimir Ulyanov, popularly known as Lenin, and the two families were close friends. Kerensky moved to Tashkent with his family when he was eight, after his father was promoted to the inspector of the local schools.

He went to St. Petersburg University to study history and philology, and a year later switched to law and ended up with a law degree in 1904.

Alexander Kerensky first came to the public view after he visited the goldfields at the Lena River and later made a report on the Lena Minefields incident—the shooting of goldfield workers on strike.

In 1912, he was elected to the Fourth Duma as a representative of the non-Marxist labor party ‘Trudoviks’, founded by Alexis Aladin; the party was also associated with the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.

He then joined the Freemason society and united the anti-monarchy forces intending to form a newly democratic Russia. In May 1914, Kerensky approached Mikhail Vladimirovich Rodzianko, carrying a list of suggestions from the Council of elders for Tsar Nicholas II.

The council had suggested bringing about changes in the domestic policy, restoring the Constitution of Finland, proclaiming a General Amnesty for political prisoners, declaring the autonomy of Poland, abolishing restrictions against Jews, bringing religious tolerance, and putting an end to the harassment of legal trade union organizations.

Kerensky always responded boldly against the imperial favorite Grigori Rasputin. In November 1916, at the opening of Duma, he publicly criticized the imperial ministers and called them “hired assassins” and “cowards”.

The Provisional Government collapsed in July 1917 and Kerensky, with his outstanding oratorical style, emerged as the perfect candidate to replace Georgy Lvov as prime minister. But things went south as he dismissed his commander in chief, General Lavr G. Kornilov, and replaced him. This created major rifts within the government.

He refused to implement radical changes in social and economic programs as demanded by the left wing, thus alienating them as well. As a result, when the Bolsheviks threw him out and seized power in late 1917, he failed to gather any forces to defend his government.