Matvei Vasilyevich Golovinski (alternatively, Mathieu) (Russian: Матвей Васильевич Головинский) (6 March 1865 – 1920) was a Russian-French writer, journalist and political activist. Critics studying The Protocols of the Elders of Zion have argued that he was the author of the work. This claim is reinforced by the writings of modern Russian historian Mikhail Lepekhine, who in 1999 studied previously closed French archives stored in Moscow containing information supporting Golovinski's authorship. Back in the mid-1930s, Russian testimony in the Berne Trial had linked the head of Russian security service in Paris, Pyotr Rachkovsky, to the creation of The Protocols.