Ivan Narodny

Ivan Ivanovich Narodny (Russian: Иван Иванович Нородны) (1870–1953) was a Russian émigré who came to New York City in 1906 with Maxim Gorky to raise the profile of the Revolutionary Movement in Russia.^[1][2]

Narodny was born in Estonia with the original name Jaan Sibbul.^[3][4] He was the son of Jaan Sibbul (1840–1920) and Madli Ago (1830–1919).^[5]

According to FBI files he had been imprisoned in Estonia in 1898.^[6] In an interview in the New York Times he said he had been involved in revolutionary activity in Kronstadt during the 1905 revolution.

Narodny organized a dinner in honor of Gorky on 12 April at the A Club Fifth Avenue and provided a setting for the announcement of a new committee to support the proposed Russian Revolution. This committee included Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Robert J. Collier and Finley Peter Dunne.^[7]

In 1915 the Russian Imperial Government published adverstiments in New York newspapers to undermine him presenting himself as a self-proclaimed “Russian Chamber of Commerce”. He was involved in the arms trade selling munitions to Russia via Japan and Vladivostock.^[2]

In 1916 he had an article about Mikhail Artsybashev published in Drama.^[8]

In 1917, following the February Revolution Narodny presented himself as head of the Russian-American Asiatic Corporation and announced that the Russian Duma was forming the "United States of Russia".^[9]

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