Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Zāmuels, Voldemārs (2 May 1872–16 January 1948). The Latvian nationalist politician and leader of the liberal Democratic Center Party Voldemārs Zāmuels was born at Dzērbene, in the Cēsis (Cēsu) region, east of Riga, and was a graduate of Dorpat (Iur′ev, now Tartu) University. He served as chairman of the Latvian Taryba (National Council) during 1917 and retained that post during the period of German occupation (30 November 1917–17 November 1918). During the Latvian War of Independence, he was attorney general (from 23 September 1919) of the Latvian republic, and in April 1920 was elected to the Latvian Constituent Assembly. He subsequently served as minister of agriculture (19 June 1921–20 July 1922) and was later briefly prime minister (25 January–16 December 1924), the first man to hold that office who was not a member of the Latvian Farmers’ Union. In 1927, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of Latvia.

Following the entry of Soviet troops into Latvia in June 1940, Zāmuels took part in abortive efforts to mount a democratic opposition before moving to Germany, where he subsequently died at Ravensburg.

Zankevich, Mikhail Ippolitovich (17 September 1877–14 May 1945). Colonel (6 December 1908), major general (7 September 1914), lieutenant general (1919). Of noble birth, M. I. Zankevich, a prominent White general, was a graduate of the Pavlovsk Cadet Corps (1891), the Pavlovsk Military School (1893), and the Academy of the General Staff (1899). He made his prewar career as a military attaché, being posted to Romania (from January 1905) and Austria-Hungary (October 1910–July 1913). During the First World War, he commanded the 146th (Tsaritsyn) Infantry Regiment (8 July 1913–May 1916), was chief of staff of the 2nd Guards Infantry Division (20 May–July 1916), and was quartermaster general of the General Staff (July 1916–February 1917). During the February Revolution, he commanded forces guarding Petrograd but did not take measures to quell the insurgency. Subsequently, he was widely suspected of having been party to plots instigated by members of the State Duma (notably the Octobrist leader A. I. Guchkov) to unseat Nicholas II. After serving as chief of military defense of the Petrograd district (February–April 1917), he was sent to France to succeed General N. A. Lokhvitskii as head of the Russian Expeditionary Force (July 1917–December 1918) and became notorious for his suppression of mutinies in that army.

As an opponent of the October Revolution, in July 1919, Zankevich moved to Siberia and was attached to the staff of the 1st Army and the 2nd Army of the Whites’ Eastern Front. He subsequently became quartermaster general and then (17 November 1919–4 January 1920), during the final days of the White regime, chief of the Staff of the Supreme Ruler under Admiral A. V. Kolchak. In emigration, he lived in France, where he served as chairman of the Union of the Pavlovsk Cadet Corps and (from 1934) chairman of the Union of the Pskov Cadet Corps. He is buried in the cemetery of Sainte-Genèvieve-des-Bois, Paris.

ZAPOROZHIAN CORPS. The Zaporozhian Corps, along with the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, was one of the original, regular, and most long-standing elements of the Ukrainian Army during the Soviet–Ukrainian War. It derived its name from the fearsome Zaporozhian Cossacks, who, from their base on the Dnepr River south of Kiev, from the 16th to the late 18th centuries had challenged the attempts of Poland-Lithuania, the Ottoman Empire, the Crimean Tatar Khanate, and the Russian Empire to exert control over Ukraine. (Zaporozhia means “beyond the rapids,” a reference to the location of the Cossacks’ main fortress, or sich, on the Dnepr.) During the course of the civil wars, the force’s strength waxed and waned between about 3,000 and 15,000 men, and it was variously described and organized as a detachment, a brigade, a division, an army corps, and an army group.