The
General Staff Academy was a
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n
military academyA military academy or service academy is an educational institution which prepares candidates for service in the officer corps of the Army, the Navy, Air Force or Coast Guard or provides education in a service environment, the exact definition depending on the country concerned.Three types of...
, established in 1832 in St.Petersburg. It was first known as the
Imperial Military Academy (Императорская военная академия), then in 1855 it was renamed
Nicholas General Staff Academy (in commemoration of
Emperor Nicholas INicholas I , , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometres.Nicholas I was born in Gatchina to Emperor Paul I and...
) and in 1909 -
Imperial Nicholas Military Academy (Императорская Николаевская военная академия).
The academy trained
Imperial Russian ArmyThe Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917.-Precursors: Regiments of the New Order:...
officers with higher military education and military land surveyors.
The
General Staff Academy was a
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n
military academyA military academy or service academy is an educational institution which prepares candidates for service in the officer corps of the Army, the Navy, Air Force or Coast Guard or provides education in a service environment, the exact definition depending on the country concerned.Three types of...
, established in 1832 in St.Petersburg. It was first known as the
Imperial Military Academy (Императорская военная академия), then in 1855 it was renamed
Nicholas General Staff Academy (in commemoration of
Emperor Nicholas INicholas I , , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometres.Nicholas I was born in Gatchina to Emperor Paul I and...
) and in 1909 -
Imperial Nicholas Military Academy (Императорская Николаевская военная академия).
The academy trained
Imperial Russian ArmyThe Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917.-Precursors: Regiments of the New Order:...
officers with higher military education and military land surveyors. It admitted officers of all arms of military service up to the rank of stabbs-captain inclusive. The academy offered two principal courses, one additional course and had a
geodesicIn mathematics, a geodesic is a generalization of the notion of a "straight line" to "curved spaces".In the presence of a metric, geodesics are defined to be the shortest path between points on the space...
department. Those who graduated from the additional course used to join the
General StaffA military staff is a group of officers and enlisted personnel that provides a bi-directional flow of information between a commanding officer and subordinate military units....
. The alumni had the right to an accelerated promotion to the next rank and commanding posts. The academy used to employ some of the best military theoriticians and historians, such as Alexei Baiov, Mikhail Dragomirov, Heinrich Leer, Dmitry Maslovsky, Nikolai Medem,
Dmitry MilyutinCount Dmitry Alekseyevich Milyutin was Minister of War and the last Field Marshal of Imperial Russia...
, Alexander Myshlayevsky, Alexander Puzyrevsky and others. From 1832 to 1918, the General Staff Academy trained 4,532 General Staff officers and contributed significantly to the development of
military theoryMilitary theory is the analysis of normative behavior and trends in military affairs and military history, beyond simply describing events in war and military theories, especially since the influence of Clausewitz in the nineteenth century attempt to encapsulate the complex cultural, political and...
. Some of the scientific works and charters prepared by the academy were even used during the first years of the formation of the
Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
.
Among academy's most famous alumni were
Nikolai ObruchevNikolai Nikolayevich Obruchev was a General Staff Officer in the Imperial Russian Army, imperial Russian general staff officer, military statistician, planner and chief of the Main Staff....
, Fyodor Radetsky,
Mikhail SkobelevMikhail Dmitrievich Skobelev was a Russian general famous for his conquest of Central Asia and heroism during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. Dressed in white uniform and mounted on a white horse, and always in the thickest of the fray, he was known and adored by his soldiers as the "White...
, and Nikolai Stoletov. Many of its alumni would become leaders of the
White movementThe White movement , whose military arm was the White Army aka the White Guard , and as the Whites comprised some of the politico-military Russian forces who unsuccessfully fought the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution and...
, such as
Aleksandr KolchakAleksandr Vasiliyevich Kolchak was a Russian naval commander, polar explorer and later head of part of the anti-Bolshevik White forces during the Russian Civil War...
and
Pyotr WrangelBaron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel was an officer in the Imperial Russian army and later commanding general of the anti-bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia in the later stages of the Russian Civil War.-Life:Wrangel was born in Mukuliai , Lithuania , a descendant of the...
. Some others would take the side of the Bolsheviks as military experts and become prominent Soviet military leaders and politicians, such as
Mikhail Bonch-BruevichMikhail Dmitriyevich Bonch-Bruyevich was an Imperial Russian and Soviet military commander, Lieutenant General .From 1892-1895, Bonch-Bruyevich served as an officer with the Lithuanian Guards Regiment, posted at Warsaw....
,
Jukums VācietisJukums Vācietis was a Latvian Soviet military commander. He was a rare example of notable Soviet leaders who were not members of the Communist Party ....
,
Sergei KamenevSergei Sergeyevich Kamenev was a Soviet military leader. He was a member of CPSU since 1930.-Military career:* World War I - commander of a regiment* Civil War - commander of Eastern Front...
,
Boris ShaposhnikovBoris Mikhailovitch Shaposhnikov , Soviet military commander, was born at Zlatoust, near Chelyabinsk in the Urals. He joined the army of the Russian Empire in 1901 and graduated from the Nicholas General Staff Academy in 1910, reaching the rank of colonel in the Caucasus Grenadiers division during...
,
Vladimir EgoryevVladimir Nikolayevich Egoryev was a military commander and military expert of Imperial Russia, RSFSR and Soviet Union....
, August Kork, Andrei Snesarev and others. Most of these commanders were executed in the 1930s. Also several
EstoniaEstonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by the Russian Federation...
n military leaders, such as
Johan LaidonerJohan Laidoner was born in Viiratsi Parish, Viljandi County, Estonia on February 12, 1884 and died in the Vladimir Prison Camp, Russia on March 13, 1953. He was one of the seminal figures of Estonian history between the World Wars...
,
Jaan SootsJaan Soots VR I/1 was a famous Estonian military commander during the Estonian War of Independence....
and
Andres LarkaAndres Larka VR I/1 was an Estonian military commander during the Estonian War of Independence and a politician....
, came from General Staff Academy. One of its graduates,
Mykola KapustianskyMykola Kapustiansky was a General in the army of the Ukrainian National Republic and one of the founders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.-Biography:...
, would become a General in the army of the Ukrainian National Republic and later a founder of the
Organization of Ukrainian NationalistsOrganization of Ukrainian Nationalists or OUN is a Ukrainian political movement originally created in 1929 in interwar Poland . The OUN at one time accepted violence as an acceptable tool in the fight against foreign and domestic enemies of their cause as the revenge upon the occupation of...
.
In March 1918, the General Staff Academy was transformed into the Red Army Military Academy. In the summer of that same year, the academy was evacuated to
KazanKazan is the capital city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia, and one of Russia's largest cities. It is a major industrial, commercial and cultural center, and remains the most important center of Tatar culture. Since April 2009 Kazan has the legal right to brand itself as the "Third Capital" of...
, where its staff would join the army of Admiral Kolchak. In 1921, the General Staff Academy was disbanded. The term was reintroduced in 1936, when the Voroshilov Military Academy of the USSR Army General Staff was established.