Dr Violet Marie Rose Conolly OBE[1] (11 May 1899 – 11 January 1988) was an Irish authority on Soviet Russia and a traveller.
She began working as a researcher at the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House in London from 1932, under Professor Arnold J. Toynbee.
Conolly received a two-year Rockefeller scholarship, studying Persian at Berlin University, later touring the Middle East.
She was appointed to the Foreign Office in London, and it was her work there during World War II which led to her specialising in Soviet affairs.
She was appointed head of the Soviet (Russian) section of the research department at the Foreign Office after the war.
Many of her publications became standard texts, including her 1933 Soviet economic policy in the East: Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, Mongolia and Tana Tuva, Sin Kiang.
She was awarded the Percy Sykes memorial medal from the Royal Central Asian Society in 1968, of which she was a member.