Alexander Bekzadyan Explained

Office:Ambassador of the Soviet Union to Hungary
Office2:People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the Armenian SSR
Termstart1:30 October 1930
Termend1:17 November 1934
Termstart2:29 November 1920
Termend2:1 May 1921
Predecessor1:Alexandra Kollontay
Predecessor2:Position established
Successor1:Ignaty Yakubovich
Successor2:Askanaz Mravyan
Office1:Ambassador of the Soviet Union to Norway
Successor:Victor Plotnikov
Predecessor:Adolf Petrovsky
Term Start:17 November 1934
Term End:20 November 1937
Birth Date:15 September 1879
Birth Place:Shushi, Elizavetpol Governorate, Russian Empire
Death Place:Kommunarka shooting ground, Moscow Oblast, Russian SFSR, USSR

Alexander Artemyevich Bekzadyan (; Armenian: Ալեքսանդր Հարությունի Բեկզադյան|translit=Alexander Harutyuni Bekzadyan; 15 September 1879 1 August 1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet statesman of Armenian descent.[1] After serving as Soviet ambassador to Norway and Hungary he was murdered during the Great Purge.

Early years

Alexander Harutyunyi (Artemi) Bekzadian was born in 1879 in Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh, Russian Empire. He graduated from Shusha Real School. In 1900-1902 he studied at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. In 1911, he graduated from the Faculty of Public Policy at the University of Zurich.

He was arrested in Russia as a member of the Baku and Transcaucasian Committees of the Bolshevik party but escaped in 1906. Bekzadyan participated in several conferences of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in Europe and Russia and maintained close contact with the figures of the 2nd International from European parties. In 1914, he worked in Baku, then in the North Caucasus.

Soviet career

In 1920-21 he served as deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of Armenia and as the first People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs of Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. In December 1920 and January 1921, he sent notes to the Turkish government, demanding an end to atrocities against the Armenian population in the occupied Armenian territories, proposing to start negotiations for the return of Kars and Alexandropol to Soviet Armenia.

From 1926 to 1930 he was deputy chairman of the government of the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Republic and People's Commissar of Trade. Bekzadyan served as the ambassador of the USSR in Norway (1930-1934) and then Hungary (1934–37).

Arrest, execution, and rehabilitation

On 21 November 1937, during the Great Purge, he was arrested and on charges of counter-revolutionary activities and was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court. On 1 August 1938, the sentence was carried out at the Kommunarka shooting ground. Bekzadyan was posthumously rehabilitated in 1956.

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Bekzadyan Alexander Artemyevich. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20200215170013/https://bessmertnybarak.ru/Bekzadyan_Aleksandr_Artemevich/ . 2020-02-15 .