Lev Karakhan

Lev Mikhailovich Karachan (Armenian Կարախանյան Լեւոն Միքայելի, Russian Лев Михайлович Карахан; born 1 February 1889 in Tbilisi, † September 20, 1937 in Moscow ) was an Armenian- Russian revolutionary and Soviet diplomat.

After the October Revolution of 1917, he was first appointed to the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR; in 1918 he took (along with Leon Trotsky and Adolf Joffe ) participated in the peace negotiations in Brest- Litovsk as members of the Russian delegation. From 1918 to 1920 and again from 1927 to 1934, he served as Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs; In this activity, he wrote on July 25, 1919, the so-called Karachan Manifesto, in which Soviet Russia renounced all political privileges and claims of the former tsarist government of Russia in China; this declaration represented the first such expression coequal and friendly relations a great European power against China and it has therefore been extremely positive. In 1921 he was appointed Russian ambassador to Poland; 1923 to 1927 he took over the position of the Soviet Ambassador to China. After 1934 he worked as ambassador to Iran and Turkey. In 1930 he married the ballet dancer Marina Semenova. During the Stalinist purges in 1937 Karachan was arrested in Moscow and executed on September 20.