Konstantin Umansky
Soviet diplomat (1902-1945)
Konstantin Aleksandrovich Umansky (Russian: Kонстантин Aлександрович Уманский; 14 May 1902 – 25 January 1945) was a Soviet diplomat, editor, journalist and artist.
Biography and career
Umansky, whose family were of Jewish origin, was born in Mykolaiv; he began studies at Moscow University in 1918, and joined the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1919. Later that year he moved to Germany where he soon started writing material informing the avant-garde art scene in Berlin of the artistic developments in Russia. Late in 1920 he moved to Vienna, where he worked for ROSTA. In November 1920 he contributed a slide-illustrated lecture to a "Russian Evening" sponsored by the art magazine MA, produced by revolutionary exiles from Hungary who had fled there following the crushing of the Hungarian Soviet Republic.
From August to October 1922, Umansky worked in the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. His ability to learn new languages (he was said to be able to learn a new language in a month) and proficiency in Russian, French, Italian, German and English gained him a position with the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) as a correspondent, which took him abroad to places including Rome, Paris and Geneva. Working for TASS from 1922–1931, there were rumours that his career in journalism was mixed with secret police activities, but Umansky refused to answer questions on this subject, stating only, "It is beneath my dignity to answer such a question." The Historical Dictionary of Signals Intelligence lists him as a REDAKTOR (NKVD Mexico).
From 1931 to 1936, Umansky worked in the Press and Information Department of the Soviet People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, first as its Deputy Head, and then as its Head. In this capacity, he was the principal censor of dispatches sent abroad by foreign journalists based in Moscow. Eugene Lyons, the correspondent of United Press recalled:
Our conversation was on a high level of international affairs, but under it I read in his gold smile, "You dislike me because I'm an egocentric Soviet go-getter, but watch me rise to commissar..." In this suavely scheming Comrade Umansky, clever with the devious shrewdness of a clothing salesman, ironical to underlings and toadying to higher-ups, discreetly indulging a sybaritic streak, I was coming to see (Perhaps unfairly, but despite myself) the quintessence of revolutionary technique.
The public source identifies “Konstantin Umansky” as soviet diplomat (1902-1945). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Konstantin, Umansky and Soviet.
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