Talk:Georgy Chicherin

Old talk

Additionally, the guy also spoke 19(!) foreign languages and was one of four people in the history to have read more than 100 000 books.

That would be worth adding if we could find a source. I'll see what I can do. Ahasuerus 13:57, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, the article has been expanded. I couldn't find a source for the exact number of labguages that Chicherin spoke, but what I did find should do for now. Ahasuerus 14:58, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Georgi or Georgy?

I'm a bit confused about what his name is. Is it spelled Georgi or Georgy? I searched for Georgi Chicherin, but the article says Georgy. I think this should be fixed. According to the book I'm reading now (Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger) it is spelled Georgi, but he could be wrong as well. I'm not sure how to verify this.

Both spellings are OK. These are alternative transliterations of Russian Георгий ("George"). --Ghirla ^-трёп- 08:56, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

The transliteration proposed by the Library of Congress would be Georgiĭ (de facto most American scholars write "Georgii," if they try to follow the Library of Congress guidelines at all - using (writing or reading) special characters apparently is too much to ask for from an American). Philtz (talk) 19:26, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Gay

Uh, kinda' confused here... Why is he listed as gay, and his article listed as falling under the LGBT Project, despite he fact that there's no mention of homosexuality in the article? Is this vandalism?--~Ça Suffit~ 08:45, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

according to Bazhanov, his homosexuality was well known. A long quote about that can be seen in Maxim Litvinov article - Litvinov made fun of his stupidity and homosexuality. Homosexuality was criminalized in Soviet Russia in 1933, which is already after the guy's career was pretty much over. 76.119.30.87 (talk) 02:42, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

There is a Bazhanov quote in the Maxim Litvinov article in the Russian wikipedia. But Bazhanov doesn't say there that Chicherin's homosexuality was well known. He only reports that Litvinov and Chicherin hated each other and that each of them wrote secret letters to the Politburo every month, accusing the other one to be incompetent. According to Bazhanov, Litvinov wrote in one of those letters that Chicherin was a "pederast, idiot and maniac"("педераст, идиот и маньяк"). Bazhanov also purports that the Politburo members only laughed at those letters and never took them seriously. A following Chicherin quote confirms that Litvinov and Chicherin had quite bad relations. In this context, Litvinov denouncing Chicherin as "pederast" doesn't really say anything about Chicherin's being homosexual. However, as it says in the current version of the Chicherin article, "[w]hile in Germany, he [Chicherin] underwent medical treatment in attempts to cure his homosexuality.", an information you can find in the Russian wikipedia as well. The source (second footnote) mentions this in a footnote on p. 175. The author of the article, Meyendorff, merely alludes to Chicherin's seeking a cure for his homosexuality by mentioning his stay at a Berlin nursing home. The footnote, which is more explicit, was presumably later added by the article's editor Igor Vinogradoff. Still, I would find it more convincing, if there was reference to a personal testimonial here and not only to dubious second-hand accounts. Philtz (talk) 19:12, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Mikhail Kuzmin had a childhood friend Georgy Vasilevich Chicherin (1872-1936) who was his own age and a self-accepting gay. In 1904 Georgy Chicherin introduced Mikhail Kuzmin to Mir iskoustva (The World of Art), which was an artistic circle centred mainly on Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929). The Mir iskoustva was attractive to Mikhail Kuzmin because of its large gay membership and its devotion to dandyism. Georgy Chicherin went on to become Lenin's foreign minister in 1918.

Chicherin doesn't seem to have been a "self-accepting gay," given the aforementioned evidence (second footnote in the article). If you wanted to say that Kuzmin was a self-accepting gay, where is your evidence? And is his friendship with Chicherin really a proof of the latter's homosexuality? Philtz (talk) 19:12, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

In their biography of Kuzmin, Malmstad and Bogomolov wrote that in the Kuzmin/Chicherin correspondance, they discussed openly their mutual homosexuality and even that Chicherin helped Kuzmin to accept it. 194.153.110.6 (talk) 12:13, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Is it relevant that G. Chicherin had a daughter?

Sometime after 1904 with his new-found wealth, Georgy Chicherin's housemaid became pregnant and delivered a daughter. In those days, this was scandalous such that it would not be public knowledge. One would ask how I would know this story? I have met Georgy Chicherin's Great Grand Daughter from her mother's side. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.127.225.228 (talk) 19:30, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Answer : that kind of fable about Chicherin is irrelevant, I'm afraid... 194.153.110.6 (talk) 12:02, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Differing Appointment days

The second paragraph under "Bolshevik government" (shouldn't it be Government with a capital G?) states that Chicherin was appointed Commissar for Foreign Affairs on the 30th of May. The infobox states he got appointed on the 9th of April. Which is it? Enemau (talk) 20:52, 5 May 2023 (UTC)