Nikolai Sharonov

Nikolai Ivanovich Sharonov (Russian: Николай Иванович Шаронов, Polish: Nikołaj Szaronow) (born 1901, date of death unknown) was a Soviet diplomat.

Nikolai Sharonow
Sharonov and his wife talking with Józef Beck, Polish Foreign Affairs Minister (June 1939)

Plenipotentiary (полпред) on a shared basis, sometimes via third countries, in Greece (1937–1939), Albania (1937–1939), Poland (1939) and Hungary (1939–1941).[1]

He was the last Soviet ambassador in the Second Polish Republic (replacing Yakov Davydov, executed in the Great Purge). He took this post in May 1939. Officially, in light of growing Polish-German tensions, he supported the Polish government, offering to discuss Soviet economic and military aid;[2] In fact the Soviets were pressured by Nazi Germany to act upon their alliance (Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact);[3] Soviet propaganda was already accusing Poland of border violations and mistreatment of Belorussian and Ukrainian minorities, and mobilization was ordered on September 7. It is not certain whether Sharonov was aware of larger Soviet policy and was acting in good faith, without consulting with the Soviet government, or whether he was trying to divert Polish government attention from Soviet preparations.[4] Sharonov and his military attaché, Pavel Rybalko, left Poland on 11 or 12[5] September 1939, less than a week before the Soviet Union invaded Poland. Sharonov's official reason for leaving the Polish capital of Warsaw was "the troubles in establishing communications with Moscow" due to the ongoing German invasion of Poland that had begun on September 1.[4]

References
  1. Послы СССР в странах Европы Archived 2010-04-25 at the Wayback Machine ("Ambassadors of the USSR in the Countries Europe") (in Russian)
  2. Hugh Ragsdale, The Soviets, the Munich Crisis, and the coming of World War II, Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-521-83030-3, Google Print, p.181
  3. German diplomats had urged the Soviet Union to intervene against Poland from the east since the beginning of the war. Roberts, Geoffrey (1992). The Soviet Decision for a Pact with Nazi Germany. Soviet Studies 44 (1), 57–78; The Reich Foreign Minister to the German Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Schulenburg) Archived 2007-06-29 at the Wayback Machine @ Avalon Project and some following documents. The Soviet Union was reluctant to intervene as Warsaw hadn't yet fallen. The Soviet decision to invade the eastern portions of Poland earlier agreed as the Soviet zone of influence was communicated to the German ambassador Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg on September 9, but the actual invasion was delayed for more than a week. Roberts, Geoffrey (1992). The Soviet Decision for a Pact with Nazi Germany. Soviet Studies 44 (1), 57–78; The German Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Schulenburg) to the German Foreign Office Archived 2007-11-05 at the Wayback Machine @ Avalon Project.
  4. Jacek Ślusarczyk, Stosunki polsko-radzieckie: 1939-1945, Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN, 1991, p.54-55
  5. Sources vary
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