Mikhail Reisner

Reisner was born in to a noble family of Pomeranian origin. His father was a state official in the Vilna Governorate. He graduated from the Law Faculty of the University of Warsaw in 1893.

From 1893 to 1896, he taught, and in 1896 he was sent to Heidelberg, where he worked for two years. Between 1898 and 1903, he was appointed professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Tomsk.[1]

As a result of participating student riots in 1903, he had to resign, he was forced to emigrate to Germany and France. At the end of 1905, Reisner returned to Russia. Participated in the organisation of the First Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in Tammerfors. After the defeat of the 1905 revolution, he again went abroad, lectured at the Russian Higher School of Social Sciences in Paris. Because of his Marxist views, he had to emigrate to Germany and France. In 1907, Reisner returned to the Russian Empire and became a lecturer at Saint Petersburg State University.

During World War I, together with his daughter Larisa, he produced the magazine "Rudin". After the October Revolution of 1917, he was appointed a professor at the University of Petrograd, where he helped to develop the first Soviet constitution. He was also the main author of the Decree on the Separation of Church and State.

Reisner was one of the founders of the Communist Academy as a center of Marxist social science. Reisner was also one of the founders of the Russian Psychoanalytical Society and worked in the People's Commissariat for Education and the People's Commissariat of Justice. Until his death, Reisner taught as a professor in the Moscow State University.[2]

Mikhail Reisner's ashes were buried at the Donskoye cemetery.