Mikhail Kalinin
Mikhail Kalinin | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Михаил Калинин | |||||||||||||||||
Kalinin in 1939 | |||||||||||||||||
| Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union | |||||||||||||||||
| In office 17 January 1938 – 20 March 1946 | |||||||||||||||||
| Premier | |||||||||||||||||
| Deputy | Nikolai Shvernik | ||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Office established | ||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Nikolai Shvernik | ||||||||||||||||
| Co-Chairman of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union | |||||||||||||||||
| In office 30 December 1922 – 17 January 1938 | |||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Office established | ||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Office abolished; Himself (as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet) | ||||||||||||||||
| Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets | |||||||||||||||||
| In office 30 March 1919 – 15 July 1938 | |||||||||||||||||
| Premier | Vladimir Lenin Alexei Rykov Sergey Syrtsov Daniil Sulimov Nikolai Bulganin | ||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Mikhail Vladimirsky (acting) | ||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Office abolished; Alexei Badayev (as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR) | ||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||
| Born | 19 November 1875 Verkhnyaya Troitsa, Russia | ||||||||||||||||
| Died | 3 June 1946 (aged 70) Moscow, Soviet Union | ||||||||||||||||
| Resting place | Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow | ||||||||||||||||
| Party |
| ||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | Ekaterina Ivanovna Lorberg-Kalinina | ||||||||||||||||
| Occupation | Civil servant | ||||||||||||||||
| Signature | |||||||||||||||||
Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (Russian: Михаил Иванович Калинин, IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈ(j)iɫ kɐˈlʲinʲɪn] ⓘ; 19 November [O.S. 7 November] 1875 – 3 June 1946) was a Soviet politician and Russian Old Bolshevik revolutionary who served as the nominal head of state of the Soviet Union from 1919 until his resignation in 1946. From 1926 until his death, he was a member of the Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
Born to a peasant family, Kalinin worked as a metal worker in Saint Petersburg and took part in the 1905 Russian Revolution as an early member of the Bolsheviks. During and after the October Revolution, he served as mayor of Petrograd (St. Petersburg). After the revolution, Kalinin became the head of the new Soviet state, as well as a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Politburo. He also was the Chairman of the Central Executive Committee in the Russian Federal Republic.
Kalinin remained the titular head of state of the Soviet Union after the rise of Joseph Stalin, with whom he enjoyed a privileged relationship, but held little real power or influence. He retired in 1946 and died in the same year. The former East Prussian city of Königsberg, annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945, was renamed Kaliningrad after him a year later. The city of Tver was also known as Kalinin until 1990, when its historic name was restored, one year before the eventual fall of the Soviet Union. At 19 years, Kalinin's tenure was the longest of any Russian head of state until it was surpassed by Vladimir Putin in 2020.