Dmitry Rogozin

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Dmitry Olegovich Rogozin
Born	December 21, 1963 (1963-12-21) (age 46) Moscow, Soviet Union
Nationality	Russian
Political party	Great Russia
Spouse(s)	Tatiana Gennadievna Rogozina
Children	Alexey (1983)
Religion	Russian Orthodox
Website	http://www.rogozin.ru/

Dmitry Olegovich Rogozin (Russian: Дми́трий Оле́гович Рого́зин; born 21 December, 1963) is a Russian politician and diplomat. In January, 2008, he became Russia's ambassador to NATO.^[1] He was a leader of the Rodina (Motherland) party until it merged with other similar Russian parties to form the Fair Russia party.^[2] He speaks 4 languages and holds a doctor's degree.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Writings 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Biography

Dmitry Rogozin was born in Moscow into the family of a famous Soviet military historian. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1986 with a degree in journalism and in 1988 graduated with another degree in economics. In 1996 he also got a PhD in philosophy.

In 1993 Dmitry Rogozin joined the recently-created party "Congress of the Russian Communities" led by General Alexander Lebed and, after its founder died in a 2002 helicopter crash, Rogozin became joint leader with Sergey Glazyev of what became the Rodina party - described by Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya as 'created by the Kremlin’s spin doctors specifically...to draw moderately nationalist voters away from the more extreme National Bolsheviks'.^[3] Rogozin was elected to the State Duma as a deputy from Voronezh city in 1997 and became a vocal activist for protection of rights of ethnic Russians in former Soviet Union republics.

Rogozin was re-elected to Russian State Duma in 1999 and subsequently appointed the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, drawing a lot of media attention and a share of criticizm for some of his flamboyant public remarks.

In 2003 Dmitry Rogozin became one of the leaders of the Rodina (Motherland) "national-patriotic" coalition, which won 9.2 % of the popular vote or 37 of the 450 seats in the Duma in 2003 parliamentary election, propelling Rogozin briefly to the post of Russian Duma's vice-speaker, from which he was dismissed a year and a half later as a result of some elaborate inter-faction dealings. He remained an ordinary member of the Duma until the following election in 2007.

After the breakthrough in 2003 elections, Rogozin became involved in power struggle with Rodina's other co-chairman Glazyev, who kept socialist views. Glazyev nominated himself as the party's candidate in 2004's Russian Presidential election - but Rogozin called on his party comrades to support incumbent President Vladimir Putin. Rogozin soon ousted Glazyev to become the party's sole leader.

Under Rogozin, Rodina shifted towards the far right wing of Russian politics and became one of the country's most successful parties. A number of controversies on Rogozin's policies culminated in it being banned in 2005 from standing for election to the Moscow City Duma for using the chauvinist slogan 'Let's clean the Garbage out of our City!'.

Rogozin's nationalist views were not shared by all his party's members. In early 2006, at Rodina's congress, Rogozin was appeared to resign as party leader. Rogozin left Rodina following its merger with the Russian Party of Life and the Pensioners' Party into Fair Russia. As of November 2006 he has been the Chairman of the revived Congress of Russian Communities. In April 2007 he announced the formation of the Great Russia Party, in conjunction with the Movement Against Illegal Immigration. The party said it may support the candidacy of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for the Presidency of Russia in 2008, a move which was unconstitutional because Lukashenko is not a Russian citizen. Because the Central Election Commission had not registered Great Russia, the party could not contest 2007's Russian State Duma election.

As Russia's NATO envoy he is heavily opposed to Ukraine and Georgia becoming members of NATO. After the two countries were denied membership of the NATO Membership Action Plan he claimed that: "They will not invite these bankrupt scandalous regimes to join NATO...more so as important partnerships with Russia are at stake."^[4]. Ukraine’s envoy to NATO Ihor Sahach replied: “In my opinion, he is merely used as one of cogs in the informational war waged against Ukraine. Sooner or later, I think, it should be stopped”. The envoy also expressed a surprise with Rogozin’s slang words. “It was for the first time that I heard such a higher official as envoy using this, I even don’t know how to describe, whether it was a slang or language of criminal circles… I can understand Russian language, but, I’m sorry, I don’t know what did his words mean”.^[5] The Foreign Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Ohryzko stated that he did not regard the statement as serious.^[5]

[edit] Writings

His political autobiography Enemy of the People^[6] became a best-seller in Russia.

His other book - War and Peace in Terms and Descriptions - became the best book of the 2004 in Russia^[7].

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Dmitry Rogozin

• Blog at Twitter (English)
• Personal web site (Russian)
• Russian Mission to NATO (English)
• Congress of Russian Communities (Russian)