Rodzyanko came from an old
Ukrainian aristocratic family: his father Pavel Rodzyanko was a major landowner and his uncle
Mikhail Rodzianko chaired the
State Duma from 1911 to 1917. Aleksandr received his education in the Russian
Page Corps military academy and at the
Cadre Noir cavalry-school in
Saumur in
France; he then joined the elite Russian
Chevalier Guard regiment. An excellent equestrian sportsman, he also studied for a year at the cavalry school at
Pinerolo in Italy under Captain
Federico Caprilli, known as "the father of the modern forward seat". After successfully participating in London (1911), winning the King Eduard VII Cup, he competed in the 5th-placed jumping team for Russia at the
1912 Olympic Games in
Stockholm. In 1919 General
Nikolay Yudenich appointed Rodzyanko (then commander of the Whites'
Northern Corps) as his aide, where he led the counter-offensive actions against the
Reds and participated in the unsuccessful advance on Petrograd. Once the
Northwestern Army had been pushed back to Narva, Estonia, on 23 November 1919, Yudenich sent him to
England to seek financial support for the further anti-bolshevik combat. After his mission proved abortive, he chose not to return to Estonia but settled in the
United Kingdom and later in the
United States. His brother Pavel Rodzyanko became an instructor at the Irish cavalry school in
Dublin and later emigrated to the United States. Aleksandr Pavlovich Rodzyanko became president of the Chevalier Guards association, wrote memoirs and died in
New York City aged 90. He is buried at the
Novo-Diveevo Cemetery in
Nanuet,
Rockland County,
New York. ==Honours and awards==