Sergei Sokolov was born in Moscow on October 7, 1878, to the family of a barrister. He graduated from the First Moscow Gymnasium in 1897 and the law faculty of Moscow University in 1901. He practiced law as a district barrister of the Moscow Judicial Chamber. In 1903, Sokolov founded the publishing house Grif in Moscow. It published such prominent authors as A. A. Blok, K. D. Balmont, Andrei Bely, F. K. Sologub, V. F. Khodasevich, I. F. Annensky and M. A. Voloshin. Sokolov was the editor and founder of a number of magazines, including “Iskusstvo”, “Zolotoe Runo” and “Pereval”. He was also a delegate in the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo and the Bronnitsky District Zemstvo. In 1913, he was elected to the board of the Consumer Society in Bykovo.¹

With the outbreak of World War I, Sokolov went to the front as a volunteer in 1914. He fought in East Prussia, rising to the rank of lieutenant and receiving the Order of Saint Anna for bravery and Order of Saint Stanislaus Third Class. In the Battle of Augustow, he was wounded in the head and taken into captivity, where he remained for three and a half years.² He was interned alongside Mikhail Tukhachevsky and Charles de Gaulle.³

In August 1918, Sokolov first returned to Moscow and then left for Crimea. From the spring of 1919 to March 1920, he served in the propaganda department of the Armed Forces of South Russia (VSYuR), heading the literary and political press bureau, where he published 50 anti-Bolshevik articles. After the Civil War, he emigrated to Paris. In exile in 1921, he was said to have become a “trusted secret political correspondent” of the commander of the Russian army, General Pyotr Wrangel.⁴

Sokolov was closely affiliated with the main figures of the White Movement. He founded the magazine "Russkaya Pravda" (Russian Truth), later transformed into the organization Brotherhood of Russian Truth. In the organization he used the pseudonym “For Ever” (written in Cyrillic). In 1922, Sokolov moved to Berlin, where he founded the publishing house Medny Vsadnik, which was financed by Duke Georgy Nikolaevich of Leuchtenberg and with which generals Alexei von Lampe and Wrangel collaborated.⁵

In 1924, Sokolov joined the literary section of Department II of the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS).⁶ Starting in 1926, at the request of Wrangel, he published the literary compilation “Beloe Delo” (White Cause).

In 1934, he left for Paris. He participated in activities of Masonic lodges in Germany and France. He died in Paris on May 14, 1936, and was buried in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois Cemetery.

Sergei Alekseevich Sokolov
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