Boris Legran
Russian diplomat (1884–1936)

Boris Vasilyevich Legran or Legrand (Russian: Борис Васильевич Легран; 1884 – 1936) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet official who represented the interests of the Russian SFSR in Armenia and Transcaucasia, during the 1920s and worked as a consular official in China during the 1920s.
He also was the director of the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad in 1931–1934.
Biography
Legran was born into the family of a civil servant in 1884 and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1901. He took part in the October Revolution in Petrograd as a Bolshevik after service in the Russian Imperial Army in World War I and, in the ensuing civil war, was appointed Deputy People's Commissar of Naval Affairs in 1918. He represented the interests of the Russian SFSR in Armenia and Transcaucasia, beginning in 1920. Legran officially joined the Communist Party in 1919.
Legrand was appointed head of the Soviet consulate in Harbin in 1926, but was recalled the following year, after being reprimanded for his performance at the consulate by the Central Committee.
In 1931 Legran was appointed director of the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad, and was replaced by Joseph Orbeli in 1934.
Legran died in Leningrad in 1936 at fifty-two.
State Hermitage Museum
In 1931 Legran was appointed to run the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad.
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