Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin was born into a noble family from the ancient Russian Chicherin lineage. His father, Vasily Nikolaevich Chicherin, was a diplomat and the brother of legal historian B. N. Chicherin, while his mother, Baroness Georgina Egorovna Meindorf, belonged to the Baltic nobility and was related to notable Russian diplomats of the Meindorf family.

Chicherin's parents were pietists and raised him in that spirit. His childhood was spent in an atmosphere of constant prayers, communal singing of religious hymns, and reading the Bible aloud, creating a rather exalted environment.

He was the nephew of legal scholar and philosopher Boris Nikolaevich Chicherin. Georgy studied at the Tambov and St. Petersburg gymnasiums, graduating from the latter with a gold medal. He then completed his studies at the historical and philological faculty of St. Petersburg University. In 1898, he began working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where his father also served, engaging in archival work.

From a young age, Chicherin showed himself to be an erudite and polyglot, played the piano beautifully, and had a phenomenal memory. He was seriously interested in European modernism and actively promoted the works of Wagner, Mozart, and Nietzsche in Russia. Chicherin had a significant influence on the formation of his friend Mikhail Kuzmin's views, and their correspondence became an important historical and cultural monument. One of the reasons for their friendship was their shared homosexual orientation.

At the same time, Chicherin was fascinated by leftist political ideas, which led him to the Menshevik camp after 1904. In that same year, he moved to Germany, remaining formally in the service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

From 1905, Chicherin was a member of the RSDRP and was part of the Berlin section of the KZO. In 1907, he was elected secretary of the Foreign Central Bureau of the RSDRP and participated in the London congress, closely collaborating with the group 'Voice of the Social Democrat.'

At the end of 1907, Chicherin was arrested in Berlin for using someone else's passport, fined, and expelled from Prussia. For some time, he lived in Leiben, near Dresden. After the editorial office of 'Voice of the SD' moved to Paris, Chicherin also relocated there and participated in the work of the French Socialist Party of Jean Jaurès, supporting the August bloc.

In 1914, he worked in Belgium, and with the onset of World War I, moved to London. There, he became a member of the British Socialist Party and one of the organizers of the Committee to Aid Russian Political Exiles and Deportees. Chicherin's main assistant was the radical suffragist Mary Bridges-Adams. The committee was engaged in collecting and sending money to revolutionaries in Russian prisons, gradually transforming into a political body agitating against the Russian government.

During the war, Chicherin adhered to a Bolshevik position of defeatism. After the February Revolution, he helped send political émigrés to Russia, despite anti-war agitation, which caused discontent among the British government. On August 22, 1917, he was arrested by British authorities, but after the October Revolution and two notes from Foreign Minister Trotsky, he was released and arrived in Petrograd on January 19, 1918.

On January 21, 1918, Chicherin became Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs under Trotsky and joined the RCP(b). Lenin highly regarded him as a diligent and intelligent worker, despite his lack of 'commanding presence.'

Chicherin signed the Treaty of Brest and from March 13, after Trotsky transitioned to the military commissariat, became acting People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, and from May 30, 1918, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, playing a crucial role in bringing Soviet Russia out of international isolation.

In 1920, he concluded a peace treaty with Estonia, and in 1921, treaties with Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan, which included provisions for the free entry of troops into Iran to ensure the security of Soviet borders.

In April 1922, Chicherin headed the Soviet delegation at the Genoa Conference and signed the Rapallo Treaty with German Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau. In 1923, he led the Soviet delegation at the Lausanne Conference, which determined the post-war status of the Turkish straits.

Chicherin signed treaties between the USSR and Turkey and Iran, but his relationship with his deputy Litvinov, who succeeded him as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, was tense. From July 1930, he was retired.

Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin passed away on July 7, 1936, and was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.