Alexander Paul A'Court BergneCBE (9 January 1937 – 5 April 2007)^[1] was a British diplomat and notedhistorian ofCentral Asia.^[2][3][4][5]

Bergne's mother wasDiana Holman-Hunt, a noted Englishmemoir writer andart critic. His great-grandfather wasWilliam Holman Hunt, a founder of thePre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. He was educated atWinchester College andTrinity College, Cambridge, where his degree was in Economics and Archaeology and Anthropology, and later at theSchool of Oriental and African Studies for an MA degree in Persian language and literature.^[1] Later he learned Arabic at theMiddle East Centre for Arabic Studies.^[2]

Bergne served for 30 years in theSecret Intelligence Service, then joined theForeign and Commonwealth Office and was the first British Ambassador to Uzbekistan (1993–95) and Tajikistan (1994–95) following the demise of the Soviet Union.^[2]In 2001 he was briefly brought out of retirement to lead a mission to northern Afghanistan to make contact with anti-Taliban leaders.Bergne died of cancer in 2007.

• Paul Bergne.The birth of Tajikistan: National Identity and the Origins of the Republic. Volume 1 of International Library of Central Asia Studies. I.B. Tauris, 2007.ISBN 1-84511-283-0,ISBN 978-1-84511-283-7

• 1937 births
• 2007 deaths
• People educated at Winchester College
• Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
• Alumni of SOAS University of London
• MI6 personnel
• Central Asian studies scholars
• Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Tajikistan
• Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Uzbekistan
• Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
• English male non-fiction writers
• 20th-century English historians
• 20th-century English male writers

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