Boris Leo Brasol | |
|---|---|
Борис Львович Бразоль | |
| Born | Boris Lvovich Brazol (1885-03-31)March 31, 1885 |
| Died | March 19, 1963(1963-03-19) (aged 77) |
| Occupation(s) | Lawyer, literary critic |
Boris Leo Brasol, bornBoris Lvovich Brazol (Russian:Борис Львович Бразоль;Ukrainian:Борис Львович Бразоль; March 31, 1885 - March 19, 1963), was aRussian lawyer and literary critic. After theOctober Revolution he settled in theUnited States.[1]
Boris Brasol was born inPoltava (today in Ukraine), in 1885. His father was thehomeopath Lev Evgenevich Brasol (aka Léon Brasol or Léon Brazol)[2] (1854 - January 1927), who was Superintendent of the Petrograd Homoeopathic Hospital in St. Petersburg, Russia. After graduation from the law department of St Petersburg University, Boris served in the Imperial Russian Ministry of Justice, where he took part in the prosecution of the Beilisblood libel case, in which Jewish factory superintendentMenahem Mendel Beilis was accused of ritual murder. In 1912, Brasol was sent toLausanne to study forensic science.
| The Protocols |
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| First publication ofThe Protocols |
| Writers, editors, and publishers associated withThe Protocols |
| Debunkers ofThe Protocols |
| Commentaries onThe Protocols |
DuringWorld War I, Brasol held the rank of Lieutenant in theTsar's army. In 1916, he was recalled from the front and sent to the United States to work as a lawyer for an Anglo-Russian purchasing committee. After the October Revolution broke out Brasol stayed in the United States.[1]
During his time in the United States, Brasol was an ardent supporter of the restoration of the monarchy in Russia, and served as the official representative ofKirill Vladimirovich, Grand Duke of Russia in the United States.[3] He was a founding member of theRussian Imperial Union-Order in 1929.[1]
Brasol had an extensive publishing career in the United States. He published "Socialism vs. Civilization" (1920), "The World at the Cross Roads" (1921), "The Balance Sheet of Sovietism" (1922), "Elements of Crime" (1927), and "The Mighty Three: Poushkin, Gogol, Dostoievsky" (1934). In 1935, he founded thePushkin Committee, and from 1937 until 1963 served as President of the Pushkin Society in America.[1]
Several authors link Brasol's name with the first U.S. edition of theProtocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, which was titled "The Protocols and World Revolution, including a Translation and Analysis of the 'Protocols of the Meetings of the Zionist Men of Wisdom.'"[4][5] Brasol pursued a successful career as aliterary critic andcriminologist and published several books in each of these fields.[6]
Brasol was a virulent anti-Semite, and he said about his work on disseminating the English translation of the Protocols, that "Within the last year I have written three books, two of which have done the Jews more injury than would have been done to them by ten pogroms."[7]
He also contributed to anti-Semitic writings inHenry Ford'sThe Dearborn Independent newspaper.[8]
Brasol was member ofAufbau Vereinigung, which financed theNazi Party. He received funding from American industrialistHenry Ford. In 1938, Brasol, who now had American citizenship, secretly helped organize an Anti-Comintern Congress in Germany with the support of theGestapo. The assembly included representatives fromCanada,France,England, andSwitzerland.[9]Heinrich Himmler showed interest in Brasol in August 1938, and even asked Heinrich Müller to compile a report on the previous activities of the white emigration.[10]
He is buried inWoodlawn Cemetery, New York.
Some of his papers are preserved in the Library of Congress Manuscript Collection.[citation needed]
[2].
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