Panteleimon Ponomarenko

Panteleimon Ponomarenko
First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan
In office 6 February 1954 – 7 May 1955
Preceded by	Zhumabay Shayakhmetov
Succeeded by	Leonid Brezhnev
Minister of Culture
In office 15 March 1953 – 9 March 1954
Premier	Georgy Malenkov
Preceded by	Nikolai Bespalov
Succeeded by	Georgy Aleksandrov
Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic
In office 7 February 1944 – 17 March 1948
Preceded by	Ivan Bylinsky
Succeeded by	Aleksey Kleshchev
First Secretary of the Communist Party of Byelorussia
In office 18 June 1938 – 7 March 1947
Preceded by	Aleksei Volkov
Succeeded by	Nikolai Gusarov
Full member of the 19th Presidium
In office 16 October 1952 – 5 March 1953
Candidate member of the 19th Presidium
In office 5 March 1953 – 14 February 1956
Member of the 18th, 19th Secretariat
In office 1 July 1948 – 5 March 1953
Personal details
Born	9 August [O.S. 27 July] 1902 Krasnodar Krai, Russian Empire
Died	18 January 1984 (aged 81) Moscow, Soviet Union
Resting place	Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow
Nationality	Soviet
Political party	Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Alma mater	Moscow State University of Railway Engineering

Panteleimon Kondrat'evich Ponomarenko (Russian: Пантелеймон Кондратьевич Пономаренко, Belarusian: Пантэляймон Кандрацьевіч Панамарэнка, Pantelajmon Kandraćjevič Panamarenka; 9 August [O.S. 27 July] 1902 – 18 January 1984) was a general in the Red Army before becoming a Soviet administrator in Belarus and then Kazakhstan. He was born in Krasnodar Krai, Russia.

From 1938 to 1947, Ponomarenko was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Belorussia, and from 1944 to 1948, also the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Byelorussia. During World War II, he led Communist partisan units within Nazi-occupied Belarus. He clashed with the Polish underground and gave orders for his troops to disarm them and execute the officers.^[1] In this aspect the forces under Ponomarenko's command initiated a limited collaboration with the Nazi occupation forces informing on members of the Polish underground.^[1]

From 16 October 1952 until 6 March 1953, Ponomarenko was a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He was made First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR in 1954 before becoming the Soviet ambassador to Poland between 1955 and 1957.^[2][3]

From 26 October 1957 to 22 April 1959 Ponomarenko was the Soviet ambassador to India and Nepal, and from 30 June 1959 to 21 June 1962 to the Netherlands. He was deported from the Netherlands by the Dutch government after an incident with scientist Aleksei Golub and his wife. They asked political asylum, and Ponomarenko had a fist fight with Dutch police officers while trying to return Golub's to the Soviet government offices.^[4][5]

Ponomarenko also taught diplomacy and assisted in the creation of the National Jazz Orchestra in Minsk.

References

• This article is based in part on material from the Polish Wikipedia

1. Bogdan Musiał. "Memorandum Pantelejmona Ponomarienki z 20 stycznia 1943 r. in: O zachowaniu się Polaków i niektórych naszych zadaniach". Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość (in Polish) (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej) (2006-09-01): 379. ISSN 1427-7476.
2. Brown, Archie (1990) "Ponomarenko, Pantaleimon Kondrat'evich (1902–1984)" The Soviet Union: A biographical dictionary Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, ISBN 0-02-897071-3 ;
3. Vronskaya, Jeanne and Chuguev, Vladimir (1988) "Ponomarenko, Panteleimon Kondrat'evich (1902–1984)" A Biographical Dictionary of the Soviet Union, 1917–1988 K.G. Saur, London, ISBN 0-86291-470-1 ;
4. Как отзывали послов. kommersant.ru. 29 September 2006
5. Российская дипломатия перешла в отступление. og.ru. 29 September 2006