Roman Rosen

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Baron Rosen was one of the members of the Russian delegation that negotiated the end of the Russo-Japanese War at the Portsmouth Peace Conference in 1905 mediated by Theodore Roosevelt

Baron Roman Romanovitch Rosen (February 24, 1847 — December 31, 1921) was a Russian diplomat. He served as the Russian ambassador to Japan and the United States during the Russo-Japanese War.

[edit] Biography

The baron was from a long line of Russian nobles that included musicians and military leaders. One his ancestors, another Baron Rosen, won distinction in command of the Astrakhanskii Cuirassier Regiment at the Battle of Borodino on September 7, 1812 for which he was noted in the official battlefield report of Major General Borozdin to General Barclay de Tolly.^[1]

A Washington Post article dated July 5, 1905 reported, "Baron Rosen is of Swedish ancestry, his forebears having followed Swedish King, Gustavus Adolphus in his invasion of Russia and settled there. He was charge d'affaires at Tokyo and later at Washington, and was acting stion in a judicial capacity as the mouthpiece of an International tribunal, that were regarded as discourteous to Japan.... As judicial minister, he reformed the judicial system of Siberia." Actually, the family was Bohemian and included one Marshal of France and one Austrian Field-Marshal.

Full size seated portrait of Baron Rosen

Rosen, who served as the Russian ambassador in Tokyo in 1897-98 and 1902-04, had attempted to prevent the war. When Theodore Roosevelt attempted to mediate the hostilities, Rosen was Sergei Witte's deputy and travelled to the Portsmouth Peace Conference to negotiate a cessation of hostilities and a peace treaty.

Rosen was a member of the State Council of Imperial Russia. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Rosen left Russia and wrote a series of articles about European diplomacy and politics for The Saturday Evening Post, including "Forty Years of a Diplomat's Life" published in 41 parts in 1919-1921.^[2]