Russian Count. Scholar of Soviet Islam, an considered the "father" of a school of students of nationality issues in the former Soviet Union and in the states formed in its aftermath. He was born in St. Petersburg, the son of Count Bennigsen, a colonel of the Horse Guards who fought on the side of the Whites during the Russian Civil War, he was taken out of Russia by his parents in 1919. After two years in newly independent Estonia, his family settled in Paris in 1924, where young Bennigsen received his education. After graduating from his lycee, he tried different fields before settling at the Ecole des Langues Orientales. Among his teachers there was the famous French Iranist Henri Masse. He subsequently entered the prestigious cavalry school at Saumur, fought the Germans as an officer in the French army during World War II and, after the fall of France, became a captain in the Resistance movement. He was awarded the Military Cross and the Resistance medal. In 1940 he married the former Helene baroness von Bildering. The couple, whose marriage lasted until Bennigsen's death, had four children, the elder of whom, Marie Broxup, became director of the Central Asian Research Center in London.
Russian Count. Scholar of Soviet Islam, an considered the "father" of a school of students of nationality issues in the former Soviet Union and in the states formed in its aftermath. He was born in St. Petersburg, the son of Count Bennigsen, a colonel of the Horse Guards who fought on the side of the Whites during the Russian Civil War, he was taken out of Russia by his parents in 1919. After two years in newly independent Estonia, his family settled in Paris in 1924, where young Bennigsen received his education. After graduating from his lycee, he tried different fields before settling at the Ecole des Langues Orientales. Among his teachers there was the famous French Iranist Henri Masse. He subsequently entered the prestigious cavalry school at Saumur, fought the Germans as an officer in the French army during World War II and, after the fall of France, became a captain in the Resistance movement. He was awarded the Military Cross and the Resistance medal. In 1940 he married the former Helene baroness von Bildering. The couple, whose marriage lasted until Bennigsen's death, had four children, the elder of whom, Marie Broxup, became director of the Central Asian Research Center in London.
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