Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Stevens retired in 1923 (although he still engaged in consultancy work), was elected president of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1927, and died at Pinehurst, North Carolina, in 1943, at the age of 90.

STOGOV, NIKOLAI NIKOLAEVICH (10 September 1873–7 December 1959). Colonel (December 1908), major general (7 February 1915), lieutenant general (29 April 1917). A senior figure in both the Red Army and the White movement in South Russia, N. N. Stogov was the son of a merchant and a graduate of the Nicholas Cadet Corps (1891), the Constantine Artillery School (1893), and the Academy of the General Staff (1900). After graduating from the academy, he served in various staff posts (including senior adjutant on the staff of the Warsaw Military District, September 1904–March 1909), before joining the quartermaster general’s section of the General Staff of the Russian Army. During the First World War, he initially worked on the staff of the 1st Finnish Rifle Brigade and then commanded the 3rd Finnish Rifle Regiment, before becoming quartermaster general (from 15 April 1915) and then chief of staff (from 25 September 1916) of the 8th Army. In these latter capacities, Stogov was a close advisor to both General A. A. Brusilov and General A. M. Kaledin. His star rose further under the Russian Provisional Government of 1917, as he became commander of the 16th Army Corps and then, following the Kornilov affair, replaced General S. L. Markov as chief of staff of the South-West Front.

Following the October Revolution, Stogov briefly commanded the South-West Front. He was mobilized into the Red Army in early 1918 and served as chief of Vseroglavshtab (8 May–2 August 1918). He subsequently worked as an administrator in the Soviet military archives. Since early 1918, however, he had been involved in the anti-Soviet underground work of the National Center and had been named one of the leaders of the Volunteer Army’s Moscow Region. By some accounts, he was arrested by the Cheka in April 1919 and imprisoned in the Butyrki prison and the Andronikov monastery in Moscow. Then he was either released in the autumn of 1919 and fled, or merely fled (by some accounts via Poland), to South Russia, where he joined the Armed Forces of South Russia. After organizing the defenses of Rostov-on-Don, he served as chief of staff of the Kuban Army (29 December 1919–February 1920) and subsequently served in the Russian Army of General P. N. Wrangel as commandant of Sevastopol′ and commander of the Forces of the Rear Region (May–November 1920).

Following the evacuation of Crimea by the Whites, Stogov lived at Zemun, Belgrade, and then, from 1924, in Paris, where he worked in a factory. He was also deputy chief (from 1928) and then chief (from 6 July 1930 to 1934) of the Military Chancellery of ROVS, as well as being involved with numerous other émigré organizations. He also contributed frequently to the ROVS journal Chasovoi (“The Sentinel”). He is buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, Paris.

Strandman, Otto August (30 November 1875–5 February 1941). A prominent nationalist during the Estonian War of Independence, Otto Strandman was born at Wierland (Virumaa, eastern Estland guberniia) and was a graduate of the Law Faculty of St. Petersburg University (1901). He worked as a lawyer, before being forced into exile in Western Europe (1905–1909) to escape persecution for his part in autonomist circles (the predecessors to the Estonian Labor Party) during the 1905 Revolution. He returned to Russia in 1909 and resumed his career as a barrister, becoming prosecutor of the Revel District Court in 1917. Following the February Revolution of 1917, as Estonia attempted to secure its autonomy from Russia, Strandman was a member of the Estonian Provincial Assembly, the Maapäev, and following the October Revolution became its chairman (25 October–27 November 1917). He was arrested by the occupying German military authorities in early 1918, but later resumed his political activities as minister of justice, minister of agriculture, prime minister (8 May–18 November 1919), and minister of war (1920–1921) of the provisional government of Estonia, as it battled for independence from Soviet Russia.

Strandman remained active in Estonian politics during the interwar period (serving as president, 1929–1931) and undertook numerous missions abroad. He committed suicide in 1941, rather than submit to arrest by the invading Soviet forces. He is buried in the Siselinna Cemetery, Tallinn.