Michael Karpovich
Encyclopedia
Mikhail Mikhailovich "Michael" Karpovich (1888 - 1959) was a Russian-American historian
of Russia
. Karpovich is remembered as one of the fathers of Slavic Studies in America.
, then part of the Russian empire
. He was a child of a mixed ethnic heritage, including Russian
, Polish
, and Georgian
ancestry.
Karpovich was active in the Russian revolutionary movement as a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR) from 1904 to 1907. He was arrested and held briefly in December 1905, then arrested again and held for a month in the castle jail before being released without having been brought to trial. Karpovich was forbidden from living further in Georgia as one of the conditions of his release. In later years, Karpovich's politics moved to the center, approximating those of the Constitutional Democratic Party
("Cadets").
Throughout his life, Karpovich remained a religious man and a practicing member of the Russian Orthodox Church
.
Following the failure of the 1905 Russian Revolution, Karpovich emigrated to France
, enrolling at the Sorbonne
where he studied the history of medieval Europe and the history and culture of Byzantium
.
In 1908 Karpovich returned to Russia, enrolling at Moscow University for a second time. There he attended lectures delivered by the legendary historian Vasilii Kliuchevsky and took courses in medieval and Russian history.
Karpovich presented an essay on "Alexander I
and the Holy Alliance
" in 1914, for which he received a diploma as a Candidate of History with first class honors.
During the first two years of World War I
, Karpovich worked as an assistant at the Historical Museum of Moscow, but he was drawn into the war effort in 1916. Karpovich was assigned to the office of the Ministry of War and assigned to the task of helping to coordinate industrial production for the needs of the front.
Following the February Revolution
of 1917 Karpovich went to work for the new Provisional Government
. He met Boris A. Bakhmetev
, future American Ambassador of Alexander Kerensky's
government by chance on the Nevsky Prospect of Petrograd. Bakhmetev persuaded Karpovich to join him on a "special mission" to America as his personal secretary. In May 1917 the pair left Russia for Washington, DC, where they established the Provisional Government's Embassy to the United States. Karpovich joined Bakhmetev with the understanding that his stay in the United States would be temporary and that he would be able to return home in time for Christmas of 1917. Historical events intervened.
to assist Bakhmetev with his activities there. Karpovich also gave lectures on Russian history at a number of universities and made translations during this interval.
In 1927, Karpovich began his long career in the history department of Harvard University
in Cambridge, Massachusetts
.
From 1946 until his death, Karpovich served as editor of the quarterly Novyi Zhurnal (New Magazine), an old school thick journal of serious Russian journalism and fiction. Karpovich was also an active contributor to The Russian Review
from its establishment in 1941, working closely via three-cornered correspondence with his co-editors, William Henry Chamberlin
and Dimitri von Mohrenschildt.
Karpovich planned to join historian George Vernadsky
in the writing of a 10 volume history of Russia, with Vernadsky handling the initial six volumes and Karpovich the final 4. The project was begun in 1943, but only Vernadsky's work was completed.
In 1949, Karpovich was named the Chairman of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard. He remained in this position until 1954, at which time he was named the Curt Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, retaining this title along that of Professor of History until his retirement in 1957.
Karpovich was honored with a Festschrift
prepared by his former students and published in 1957, entitled Russian Thought and Politics.
Karpovich was remembered by pioneer historian of Russia William Henry Chamberlin
as "a great Russian scholar, equally at home in history and literature" who was "a vital influence on the development of Russian studies in the United States." Chamberlin continued:
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. Karpovich is remembered as one of the fathers of Slavic Studies in America.
Early years
Mikhail Mikhailovich Karpovich was born August 3, 1888 in Tiflis, GeorgiaGeorgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
, then part of the Russian empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. He was a child of a mixed ethnic heritage, including Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
, Polish
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
, and Georgian
Georgian people
The Georgians are an ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America....
ancestry.
Karpovich was active in the Russian revolutionary movement as a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR) from 1904 to 1907. He was arrested and held briefly in December 1905, then arrested again and held for a month in the castle jail before being released without having been brought to trial. Karpovich was forbidden from living further in Georgia as one of the conditions of his release. In later years, Karpovich's politics moved to the center, approximating those of the Constitutional Democratic Party
Constitutional Democratic party
The Constitutional Democratic Party was a liberal political party in the Russian Empire. Party members were called Kadets, from the abbreviation K-D of the party name...
("Cadets").
Throughout his life, Karpovich remained a religious man and a practicing member of the Russian Orthodox Church
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...
.
Following the failure of the 1905 Russian Revolution, Karpovich emigrated to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, enrolling at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
where he studied the history of medieval Europe and the history and culture of Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...
.
In 1908 Karpovich returned to Russia, enrolling at Moscow University for a second time. There he attended lectures delivered by the legendary historian Vasilii Kliuchevsky and took courses in medieval and Russian history.
Karpovich presented an essay on "Alexander I
Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....
and the Holy Alliance
Holy Alliance
The Holy Alliance was a coalition of Russia, Austria and Prussia created in 1815 at the behest of Czar Alexander I of Russia, signed by the three powers in Paris on September 26, 1815, in the Congress of Vienna after the defeat of Napoleon.Ostensibly it was to instill the Christian values of...
" in 1914, for which he received a diploma as a Candidate of History with first class honors.
During the first two years of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Karpovich worked as an assistant at the Historical Museum of Moscow, but he was drawn into the war effort in 1916. Karpovich was assigned to the office of the Ministry of War and assigned to the task of helping to coordinate industrial production for the needs of the front.
Following the February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
of 1917 Karpovich went to work for the new Provisional Government
Provisional government
A provisional government is an emergency or interim government set up when a political void has been created by the collapse of a very large government. The early provisional governments were created to prepare for the return of royal rule...
. He met Boris A. Bakhmetev
Boris Bakhmeteff
Boris Alexandrovich Bakhmeteff was an engineer, businessman, professor of Civil Engineering at Columbia University and the only ambassador of the Russian Provisional Government to the United States. He was unrelated to his predecessor as ambassador, George Bakhmeteff. His wife Helen died in 1921...
, future American Ambassador of Alexander Kerensky's
Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky was a major political leader before and during the Russian Revolutions of 1917.Kerensky served as the second Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government until Vladimir Lenin was elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets following the October Revolution...
government by chance on the Nevsky Prospect of Petrograd. Bakhmetev persuaded Karpovich to join him on a "special mission" to America as his personal secretary. In May 1917 the pair left Russia for Washington, DC, where they established the Provisional Government's Embassy to the United States. Karpovich joined Bakhmetev with the understanding that his stay in the United States would be temporary and that he would be able to return home in time for Christmas of 1917. Historical events intervened.
Career in America
Karpovich remained in this position of trust at the Russian embassy until the middle of 1922, at which time Karpovich moved to New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to assist Bakhmetev with his activities there. Karpovich also gave lectures on Russian history at a number of universities and made translations during this interval.
In 1927, Karpovich began his long career in the history department of Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
.
From 1946 until his death, Karpovich served as editor of the quarterly Novyi Zhurnal (New Magazine), an old school thick journal of serious Russian journalism and fiction. Karpovich was also an active contributor to The Russian Review
The Russian Review
The Russian Review is a major independent peer-reviewed multi-disciplinary academic journal devoted to the history, literature, culture, fine arts, cinema, society, and politics of the Russian Federation, former Soviet Union and former Russian Empire. The journal was established in 1941 and is...
from its establishment in 1941, working closely via three-cornered correspondence with his co-editors, William Henry Chamberlin
William Henry Chamberlin
William Henry Chamberlin was an American historian and journalist. He was the author of several books about the Cold War, Communism and US foreign policy, the most famous of which was The Russian Revolution 1917-1921...
and Dimitri von Mohrenschildt.
Karpovich planned to join historian George Vernadsky
George Vernadsky
George Vernadsky , Russian: Гео́ргий Влади́мирович Верна́дский) was a Russian-American historian and an author of numerous books on Russian history.- European years :...
in the writing of a 10 volume history of Russia, with Vernadsky handling the initial six volumes and Karpovich the final 4. The project was begun in 1943, but only Vernadsky's work was completed.
In 1949, Karpovich was named the Chairman of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard. He remained in this position until 1954, at which time he was named the Curt Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, retaining this title along that of Professor of History until his retirement in 1957.
Death and legacy
Michael Karpovich died on November 7, 1959 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.Karpovich was honored with a Festschrift
Festschrift
In academia, a Festschrift , is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during his or her lifetime. The term, borrowed from German, could be translated as celebration publication or celebratory writing...
prepared by his former students and published in 1957, entitled Russian Thought and Politics.
Karpovich was remembered by pioneer historian of Russia William Henry Chamberlin
William Henry Chamberlin
William Henry Chamberlin was an American historian and journalist. He was the author of several books about the Cold War, Communism and US foreign policy, the most famous of which was The Russian Revolution 1917-1921...
as "a great Russian scholar, equally at home in history and literature" who was "a vital influence on the development of Russian studies in the United States." Chamberlin continued:
"Karpovich embodied in his own personality the finest traits of the pre-war Russian intelligentsiaIntelligentsiaThe intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...
; he was a liberal in the truest and broades sense of that much abused word. His own ancestry reflected Russian political vicissitudes and the multinational character of the old Russian Empire. One of his forefathers was a banished Polish revolutionary; his birthplace was Tiflis, the picturesque historic capital of Georgia. So he was predisposed both against Russian chauvinismChauvinismChauvinism, in its original and primary meaning, is an exaggerated, bellicose patriotism and a belief in national superiority and glory. It is an eponym of a possibly fictional French soldier Nicolas Chauvin who was credited with many superhuman feats in the Napoleonic wars.By extension it has come...
and against the anti-Russianism of some embittered members of the non-Russian nationalities."
Contributions
- Economic History of Europe. Contributor. New York: 1937.
- Waldemar Gurian (ed.), The Soviet Union: A Symposium. 1951.