Potemkin, Vladimir Petrovich (1874-1946)

Soviet statesman, diplomat and scholar. Potemkin was in the diplomatic service from 1922 until 1940 and then became a government official. He served as Soviet ambassador (then called Polpred) to Italy from 1932 to 1934 and ambassador to France from 1934 to 1937. He signed the 1935 Soviet-French treaty on mutual assistance on behalf of the USSR. From 1937 until March 1940, he was Deputy People’s Commissar, or Narcom, of Foreign Affairs. From 1940 to 1946, he was the Commissar of Education of the RSFSR, and from 1943 to 1946, President of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences. He wrote books on the history of international relations and on education. ¹