Pavel Milyukov was born in Moscow into a noble family of an architect. He graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University (1882). Since 1886, he worked as an assistant professor. In 1895, he was dismissed from the university for his lectures, in which the autocracy was condemned. He was exiled from Moscow to Ryazan. Milyukov collaborated with the Osvobozhdeniye [Liberation] journal (editor Pyotr Struve). October 1905 saw him become a founder of the Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets). Since March 1907, he was Chairman of the Central Committee of the party. In 1907–1917, he was an MP of the State Duma of the 3rd and 4th convocations, leading the activity of the Kadet faction. In 1915–1917, Milyukov was a central figure of the Progressive Bloc (association of parliamentary factions that advocated liberal reforms). On November 1, 1916, in his speech at the Duma Milyukov accused of treason Prime Minister Boris Stürmer and the entourage of Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna.

During the February Revolution of 1917, he was a member of the Provisional Committee of the State Duma. In March–May 1917, he held the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government. On April 18, 1917, Milyukov signed a formal note to the governments of Britain and France proclaiming that Russia would fulfill its obligations towards the Allies. The violation of the agreements of the Provisional Government with the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies on an immediate peace without annexations and the subsequent protest marches in the capital caused his resignation and the beginning of the April government crisis.

In August 1917, he supported the Kornilov affair aimed at establishing a military dictatorship. After the October coup of 1917, he left for Moscow to organize resistance to the Bolsheviks. Then he went to the Don area, where he joined the volunteer military organization of General Mikhail Alekseyev. Milyukov became a member of the Don Civil Council. He was the author of the Declaration of the Volunteer Army. In May 1918, in Kyiv, Milyukov negotiated with the German command on the funding of the anti-Bolshevik military campaign. The majority of the Kadets did not support Milyukov’s pro-German orientation, and he resigned from his duties as Chairman of the Party’s Central Committee. In November 1918, he took part in the Iasi conference between representatives of the Entente and Russian politicians who did not recognize the power of the Bolsheviks.

In November 1918, he left for Western Europe via Turkey. Milyukov lived first in England, then in France. He was the founder and Chairman of the Society of Russian Writers and Journalists, the Club of Russian writers and scholars, the Committee for Famine Relief in Russia. Milyukov lectured at the Sorbonne, College of Social Sciences, Franco-Russian Institute. He wrote a number of works and memoirs about the events of the Revolution and the Civil War. In 1922, he survived the assassination attempt made by the monarchists, in which Vladimir Nabokov, who was trying to disarm the terrorist, died. After the German invasion of the USSR in 1941, he declared solidarity with the Russian people. Milyukov died in 1943 in Aix-les-Bains, France.