Pavel Ignatieff

Count Pavel Nikolayevich Ignatiev (Russian: Павел Николаевич Игнатьев, sometimes rendered in English as Paul Ignatieff; June 30/July 12, 1870 Istanbul– August 12, 1945) was an Imperial Russian politician. Pavel's father Count Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev, was Russian Minister of the Interior under Tsar Alexander III of Russia.

Ignatieff married Princess Natalya Meshcherskaya (1877-1944) in Nice, France on April 16, 1903. They would have seven children, all boys, two of whom died as infants.

He was a graduate of the University of Kiev. Afterward he entered the Imperial Ministry of Agriculture eventually becoming a Director of one of its departments in 1909. He was appointed Assistant Minister of Agriculture in 1912. In 1915, during the First World War he was appointed Minister of Education. He held that position until December 1916.

As a result of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ignatieff and his family fled to France. In 1925, the family emigrated to Canada, and settled permanently three years later in Upper Melbourne in Quebec, where he died August 12, 1945.

One of the Ignatieff's sons, George, was a prominent Canadian diplomat. One of his grandsons, Michael Ignatieff, is an author, Harvard professor, former Canadian Member of Parliament and former leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.