ZHIRINOVSKY, Vladimir Volfovich
Deputy Speaker of the State Duma
Chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR)

Vladimir Zhirinovsky (Владимир Вольфович Жириновский) was born April 25, 1946 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. A controversial figure known for his fist fights and nationalistic beliefs, Zhirinovsky is the founder and head of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR).

Zhirinovsky left Kazakhstan for Moscow in 1964, graduating from Moscow State University’s Institute for Oriental Languages in 1970. He received a PhD in philosophy from the same university in 1977. In the early 1970s Zhirinovsky completed military service in Tblisi.  

Although he dabbled in politics in the 1980s, the beginning of the 1990s marked Zhirinovsky's real entry into Russian politics. Having set up the LDPR with Vladimir Bogachev, it became the second party to be registered in the Soviet Union. Zhirinovsky came third in Russia’s first presidential elections in 1991, winning 7.81 percent of the vote. Since then, the LDPR has remained one of the major Russian political parties, registering less than five percent of the vote in only two elections since the collapse of the Soviet Union – presidential elections in 2000 and 2004.

Zhirinovsky has run in a total of four presidential elections, receiving 5.7 percent of the vote in 1996, 2.7 percent in 2000 and 9.35 in 2008. In 2004, he did not run for president, nominating his deputy Oleg Malyshkin instead, who received 2 percent of the vote. 

The LDPR leader has caused much controversy at home and abroad for his speeches and altercations with other politicians. Zhirinovsky has previously been expelled from Bulgaria and barred from entering Germany, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. In 1991 he promised voters free vodka if he was elected. He has also repeatedly been accused of anti-semitism, and is alleged to have accused Jews of bringing Russia to ruin, sending Russian women abroad as prostitutes, selling healthy children and transplant organs to the West and provoking the Holocaust. In 2001 he stopped denying that his father was Jewish and admitted that his surname had been changed from Eidelshtein to Zhirinovsky. He has also expressed hatred for Turks, Caucasians and the Chinese. He advocates reclaiming former Russian and Soviet territories. 

Zhirinovsky supported Sadam Hussein and sent armed volunteers to support him during the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. He is also alleged to have close links with Serbian nationalist leader and war crimes suspect Vojislav Seselj.

He supported the murder of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 and helped the prime suspect in the poisoning, Andrei Lugovoi to get elected to parliament in order to secure immunity from prosecution. 

Zhirinovsky threw juice over rival Boris Nemtsov during a debated in 1995 and was involved in a brawl during T.V. debates in 2003. He was at the centre of a fight, which broke out in the State Duma in 2005, during which he spat at Rodina’s Andrei Saveliyev. Nikolai Gotsa, who was threatened by Zhirinovsky while representing the Democratic Part of Russia (DPR) candidate Andrei Bogdanov in 2008, successfully sued him for damages. 

Zhirinovsky speaks English, French, German and Turkish. He is married and has one son, Igor Vladimirovich Lebedev, who is a State Duma deputy and leads the LDPR faction within the Duma.

Related links:

Zhirinovsky biography on the State Duma website

LDPR website

Related Russia Profile articles:

More Influential Than Oprah Winfrey? (11/12/2009, Tom Balmforth)

Russia Profile Weekly Experts Panel: A Stolen Election in Moscow? (10/23/2009, Vladimir Frolov)