Andrey Kozyrev: biography, activities

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:46

Andrey Kozyrev (born March 27, 1951) was Russia's first foreign minister under President Yeltsin from October 1991 to January 1996. He began working at the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1974, but he made a lightning-fast career precisely with the coming to power of Boris Yeltsin.

Origin and Nationality

Where did Andrey Vladimirovich Kozyrev start his life? His biography began in Brussels, where his father, an engineering and technical officer at the Ministry of Foreign Trade, worked for a long time. As Kozyrev himself said in an interview with the New York Times this summer, his family (probably his father's parents) fled the village (apparently during the period of collectivization). Two of Kozyrev's uncles were officers of the Soviet army with the rank of colonel.

About his mother, one can only assume that she, apparently, was Jewish, since Kozyrev himself is a member of the Presidium of the Russian Jewish Congress, and it is customary for Jews to lead their family lineage on the maternal side. So who then is Andrey Vladimirovich Kozyrev? His nationality is quite distinctmanifested itself in the very fact of being elected to the presidium of the aforementioned organization: he is a Jew. Although in his Soviet questionnaire he always indicated "Russian" in the "nationality" column.

Years of study

Andrey Kozyrev studied at a specialized Spanish school, which greatly helped him when he entered the institute. But at first he did not at all strive to get a higher education and after school he went to work as a locksmith at the regime Moscow machine-building plant Kommunar, intending to go to serve in the army after a year of work (he himself outlines this version in his interview to Forbes magazine). But after a year of physical labor, his life priorities changed a lot, and Andrey went to the party organizer of his workshop for a recommendation to enter the institute.

This document was given to him, and with him the applicant went to the University. Patrice Lumumba, where they were accepted only on such recommendations. But he was prevented from entering there by the admission to state secrets, obtained in the process of working at Kommunar (after all, there were many foreign students in this “university”). However, the Kommunar party committee corrected its mistake and rewrote the recommendation to MGIMO. With her, Andrey Kozyrev nevertheless entered this prestigious university in 1969 and successfully graduated five years later.

The beginning of a diplomatic career and a change of outlook

After completing his studies, Andrey Kozyrev goes to work in the Department of International Organizations (OMO) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was responsible for issues related to the UN, arms control, including biological andchemical weapon. Over the next three years, he prepared and defended his Ph. D. thesis on the role of the UN in the détente process in the 1970s.

In 1975, Kozyrev traveled abroad for the first time - to the USA. The 24-year-old Soviet diplomat is experiencing, according to him, a real shock from the abundance of goods he saw there. He should remember the words of Vladimir Mayakovsky: “The Soviets have their own pride! We look down on the bourgeois! But apparently, young Soviet diplomats didn't bring up this very pride.

The second blow to Kozyrev's worldview was the reading of Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago. By his own admission in the same Forbes interview, he became after that "an internal dissident and, frankly, an anti-Soviet."

Career in the Soviet period

Kozyrev very difficult to move up the career ladder. He was not sent to a permanent job abroad, after 12 years of service he rose to the position of head of the UMO department. A very important role in his later career was played by good relations with Eduard Shevardnadze, who came to the Foreign Ministry in 1988 to replace Andrei Gromyko. The new minister began a radical reorganization of his department. Under him, Kozyrev became the head of the UMO, replacing a man who was 20 years older than him. In 1989, Kozyrev published a sharp article in the journal Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn, criticizing the foreign policy of the Soviet state, calling in it to abandon the support of numerous pseudo-socialist allied countries. The article was reprinted by The New York Times,it was dismantled at the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU. But Shevardnadze supported his position.

Activities as a minister

Through a former Foreign Ministry official, Lukin, who became chairman of the committee on international relations of the RSFSR parliament, Kozyrev was introduced into the team of parliament chairman Boris Yeltsin. He was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR. This position was purely decorative, Russia did not conduct any foreign policy within the USSR.

After a failed coup attempt in 1991, he found himself in a team of young reformers that included Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais, who shared with Kozyrev his pro-Western liberal-democratic ideals. Together with Gennady Burbulis, he prepared in Belovezhskaya Pushcha in December 1991 a document on the demise of the USSR and the formation of the CIS.

Kozyrev claimed he was trying to make Russia a partner for the West in the emerging post-Cold War world order. He initiated major arms control agreements with the United States. He is also regarded by many as one of the most vocal proponents of liberalism and democracy in post-communist Russia.

Kozyrev's statement (according to Yevgeny Primakov) is widely known (according to Yevgeny Primakov) that Russia has no formed national interests and it needs help from the United States in developing them. He did not oppose the expansion of NATO to the East in the early 1990s, which caused a sharp rejection of many Russian politicians. Facilitated Russia's accession to the programNATO "Partnership for Peace", which resulted in the hasty and unprepared withdrawal of Russian troops from Germany in 1994.

The personnel policy of the minister was actually aimed at the collapse of the Foreign Ministry. Over the years of his leadership, more than 1,000 qualified diplomats left the department.

Anticipating his imminent resignation, the minister prudently organized his election to the State Duma in 1995, and then asked Yeltsin for his resignation, which was given to him. For some time he worked in the Russian parliament, and then withdrew from political life. However, could such a well-known politician as Andrey Vladimirovich Kozyrev be completely lost? Where does the former head of the Russian Foreign Ministry live now. He settled in Miami. This summer, he gave an interview to The New York Times, in which he expressed hope for an early change in Russia's political course. Well, let's wait and see.

Kozyrev Andrei Vladimirovich: family and personal life

Today our hero is sunbathing and reading tomes about democratic changes in the world. Periodically travels to Washington to attend meetings of the American Council on Foreign Policy, which provides analytical information to members of Congress.

And what is Andrey Vladimirovich Kozyrev like in the family? His wife Elena was once an employee of the Foreign Ministry. Now he runs their common household. They have an 18-year-old son Andrei.