Konni Zilliacus
Konni Zilliacus | |
---|---|
Member of Parliament for Manchester Gorton | |
In office 26 May 1955 – 6 July 1967 | |
Preceded by | William Oldfield |
Succeeded by | Kenneth Marks |
Member of Parliament for Gateshead | |
In office 5 July 1945 – 3 February 1950 | |
Preceded by | Thomas Magnay |
Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
Personal details | |
Born | 13 September 1894 |
Died | 6 July 1967 (aged 72) |
Konni Zilliacus (13 September 1894 – 6 July 1967) was the Member of Parliament for Gateshead from 1945 until 1950, and for Manchester Gorton from 1955 until his death. He was a left-wing Labour Party politician.
Zilliacus spoke nine languages fluently and international issues absorbed much of his energy, both as an official of the
Zilliacus campaigned for less spending on weapons. He was a founder member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and opposed the Vietnam War. His father was Konrad Viktor Zilliacus, a Finnish independence activist.
Early life
Zilliacus was born in
During
League of Nations Secretariat
Being multilingual, he found work as the British envoy to the
Zilliacus maintained a correspondence with C. P. Scott of The Manchester Guardian, which in 1935 helped generate popular support within Britain for sanctions against Italy should it attempt to conquer Ethiopia, an invasion which was launched later in the year.[7] He wrote many articles and letters on international affairs on a pro bono basis, usually under pen names such as Vigilantes.[8]
Zilliacus was a firm believer in the power of multinational organizations to prevent war, but he could not lead British foreign policy to work through the League. He worked diligently for the League of Nations until
Parliament
In World War II, Zilliacus worked for the Ministry of Information and joined the 1941 Committee.[10]
Election to parliament
He was elected as Member of Parliament for Gateshead in 1945 and became known as a left-wing critic of government foreign policy.[10]
Expulsion from Labour party
Zilliacus was frequently accused of being a communist because he was sympathetic to
Return to parliament
In 1952, he was readmitted to the Labour Party, and he won the
Personal life
Zilliacus married, in 1919, Eugenia Nowicka,[18] a 19-year-old Polish woman revolutionary whom he had met while in Siberia. She took the name Eugenia Nowicka Zilliacus.
Zilliacus never married his arguably more important or better-known "wife", Jan Trimble, daughter of Laurence Trimble, an American film director of the silent screen era, though she took the name Zilliacus and had a daughter by him in 1945.[19] The Zilliacus family (she had other children) lived from the 1940s onward in the St. John's Wood and nearby Maida Vale areas of London, where she was a London Zoo volunteer and, until her death in 1999, a stalwart of the local (Paddington) Constituency Labour Party.
Works
Zilliacus wrote under several pseudonyms, as given here.
- Williams, Roth (1923). The League of Nations Today. London: George Allen & Unwin.
- Williams, Roth (1924). The Technique of the League of Nations. League of Nations Union.
- Williams, Roth (1925). The League, the Protocol, And The Empire. London: George Allen & Unwin.
- James Cotton ‘"The Standard Work in English on the League” and Its Authorship: Charles Howard Ellis, an Unlikely Australian Internationalist’, History of European Ideas, 42:8, 1089-1104, DOI: 10.1080/01916599.2016.1182568.
- C. Howard-Ellis (1928). The Origin Structure & Working of the League of Nations. London: George Allen & Unwin.
- Vigilantes (1933). The Dying Peace. London: New Statesman.
- Vigilantes (1935). Inquest on Peace: An Analysis of the National Government's Foreign Policy. Gollancz.
- Vigilantes (1935). Abyssinia: The Essential Facts In The Dispute and An Answer To the Question -"Ought We To Support Sanctions?". London: New Statesman and Nation.
- Covenanter (1936). Labour and war resistance. Fabian Research Series. London: Gollancz.
- Vigilantes (1938). Why the League Has Failed. Left Book Club. London: Victor Gollancz.
- Diplomaticus (1938). The Czechs and their Minorities. London: T. Butterworth.
- Vigilantes (1939). Between Two Wars? The Lessons of the Last World War in Relation to The Preparations for The Next. London: Penguin.
- Vigilantes (1939). Why We Are Losing the Peace: The National Governments Foreign Policy its Causes Consequences and Cure. London: Victor Gollancz\.
- K. Zilliacus ("Vigilantes") (1944). The Mirror of the Past - Lest it Reflect the Future. Left Book Club. Victor Gollancz.
- Diplomaticus (K. Zilliacus) (1945). Can the Tories Win the Peace? And How They Lost the Last One. London: Victor Gollancz.
- Zulliacus, Konni (1946). Britain, U.S.S.R. and World Peace. London: British-Soviet Society.
- K. Zilliacus (1947). Mirror of the present : the way the world is going. London: Meridian Books.
- Zilliacus, K. (1949). I Choose Peace. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
- K. Zilliacus (1949). Dragon's teeth : the background, contents and consequences of the North Atlantic Pact. London.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Zilliacus, Konni (1949). Why I was expelled. London: Collets.
- K. Zilliacus (1952). Tito of Yugoslavia. London: Mchael Joseph.
- Zilliacus, Konni (1955). Four Power Talks: For Peace or War?. London: Union of Democratic Control.
- K.Zillliacus (1957). A New Birth of Freedom? World Communism after Stalin. London: Secker & Warburg.
- Konni Zilliacus (1960). aNATOmy of a Sacred Cow. Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
- Zilliacus, Konni (1963). Our Lives and Cuba: What Britain must do to Survive. London: Gladiator.
- K. Ziliacus (1966). Labour's crisis : its nature, cause and cure.
References
- Spartacus on Konni Zilliacus
- Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages [better source needed]
- Potts, Archie (2002). Zilliacus: A Life for Peace and Socialism. Merlin Press.
External links
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Konni Zilliacus
- Portraits of Konni Zilliacus at the National Portrait Gallery, London
- Paul Flewers, Review: A Life for Peace and Socialism
- Newspaper clippings about Konni Zilliacus in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
- ^ Pp. 1-7, Archie Potts 『Zilliacus: A Life for Peace and Socialism』(2002)
- ^ Pp. 7-13, Archie Potts 『Zilliacus: A Life for Peace and Socialism』(2002)
- ^ P. 17, Archie Potts 『Zilliacus: A Life for Peace and Socialism』(2002)
- ^ Chapter 4: Manchurian Crisis. Archie Potts 『Zilliacus: A Life for Peace and Socialism』(2002)
- ^ Chapter 3 Geneva, Archie Potts 『Zilliacus: A Life for Peace and Socialism』(2002)
- ^ James Cotton:『‘"The Standard Work in English on the League”'』(2016)
- ^ P. 43, Archie Potts 『Zilliacus: A Life for Peace and Socialism』(2002)
- ^ P. 16, Archie Potts 『Zilliacus: A Life for Peace and Socialism』(2002)
- ^ P. 57, Archie Potts 『Zilliacus: A Life for Peace and Socialism』(2002) (9 August 1938 resignation)
- ^ a b P. 88, Archie Potts 『Zilliacus: A Life for Peace and Socialism』(2002)
- ^ Michael Shelden: George Orwell. 1989. p. 584.
- ^ P. 141, Archie Potts 『Zilliacus: A Life for Peace and Socialism』(2002)
- ^ a b c David Widgery,
The Left in Britain, 1956-68, Harmondsworth : Penguin, 1976. ISBN 0140550992(p. 505).
- ^ "Czech Trial "Fantastic" says Zilliacus",The Bulletin and Scots Pictorial, 21 November 1952, (pg. 1)
- ^ P. 160 (1955), 169 (1959), 182 (1963), 187 (1967)(elections) Archie Potts 『Zilliacus: A Life for Peace and Socialism』(2002)
- ^ Preface p. ix, Archie Potts 『Zilliacus: A Life for Peace and Socialism』(2002)
- ^ Simkin, John. "Konni Zilliacus" at historiasiglo20.org, accessed on 10/27/13.
- ^ "Eugenia Zilliacus". geni_family_tree. 10 October 1899. Retrieved 27 February 2017.
- ^ "Obituary: Jan Zilliacus". The Independent. 1 June 1999. Retrieved 27 February 2017.