Kollontay A.M. (1872-1952), revolutionary and statesman

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KOLLONTAY (nee Domontovich) Alexandra Mikhailovna (1872, St Petersburg - 1952), Soviet party worker, diplomat, writer. In 1888, she passed all school examinations without having attended classes. In the 1890s, she worked toward the enlightenment of Petersburg workers, collaborated with the Petersburg journals Obrazovanie, Nauchnoe Obozrenie and others, and attended political meetings at the Stasov apartment (20 Furshtatskaya Street). She took part in the events of 9 January 1905 (see Bloody Sunday). She worked for the creation of the Mutual-Aid Society for Women-Workers (1907), and the holding of the First All-Russian Women's Congress in St Petersburg (1908). From December 1908, she lived abroad. In March 1917, she returned to Petersburg, became a member of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd City Soviet; during the July 1917 incidents she was arrested, but released shortly afterwards. At the Sixth Congress of Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Bolshevik Party, she was elected to be a member of the Executive Committee in absentia. In 1917-18, she was the Peoples' Commissar for State Charity (social security), and a prominent figure in the Women's Movement. From March 1918, she lived in Moscow. In 1920-22, she was Chief of the Women's Department of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Bolshevik Party. Kollontay was the first woman in the world to be a diplomat; from 1923, she was Ambassador and Trade Representative to Norway; in 1926, to Mexico; from 1927-30, to Norway again; from 1930-45 Envoy, then Ambassador to Sweden. In 1944, she conducted armistice negotiations with Finland. In 1945 she became Advisor to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the USSR. She wrote works on labour and the women's movement. In 1972, a street on the right bank of the Neva River was named after Kollontay.

References: Иткина А. М., Революционер, трибун, дипломат: Страницы жизни А. М. Коллонтай. Изд. 2-е, доп. М., 1970; Олесин М. И. Первая в мире: Биогр. очерк об А. М. Коллонтай. М., 1990.

Y. N. Kruzhnov. Kollontay Alexandra Mikhailovna
the Stasovs
Kollontay St./Saint Petersburg, city