Michael Karpovich

Mikhail Mikhailovich Karpovich (; 3 August 1888 – 7 November 1959), known in English as Michael Karpovich, was a Russian and American historian of Russia and one of the fathers of Slavic studies in the United States.

Early life Mikhail Mikhailovich Karpovich was born on 3 August 1888, in Tiflis in the Russian Empire. He was of mixed Russian, Polish, and Georgian ancestry. He became active in 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 before being released without having been brought to trial. In 1908 he returned to Russia and enrolled at Moscow University for a second time, to study history. There he attended the lectures of the legendary historian Vasilii Kliuchevsky. 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, D.C., 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.

Karpovich planned to join historian George Vernadsky in writing a 10-volume history of Russia, with Vernadsky handling the initial six volumes and Karpovich the final four. The project was begun in 1943, but only Vernadsky's work was completed.

In 1949 Karpovich was named Chairman of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard.

Karpovich was honored by former students with the Festschrift, Russian Thought and Politics (1957) He was remembered by 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:

"Karpovich embodied in his own personality the finest traits of the pre-war Russian intelligentsia; he was a liberal in the truest and broadest 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 chauvinism and against the anti-Russianism of some embittered members of the non-Russian nationalities."

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