Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin

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 head of state of the Soviet Union from 1919 until his resignation in 1946. (This position was largely ceremonial, with actual power residing with Communist Party leader Joseph Stalin.) 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 of the Soviet Union.

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 non-monarchical Russian head of state until it was surpassed by Vladimir Putin in 2020.