Serge Zenkovsky

Serge Aleksandrovich Zenkovsky (; 16 June 1907, Kiev, Russian Empire – 31 March 1990, Florida) was a Russian historian, expatriate in the United States since 1949. He specialized in Economic, Eastern European and Central Asian history.

Life Europe Zenkovsky was born on 16 June 1907 (Gregorian calendar) in Kiev. His father Aleksandr (1878–1966) was a professor of economics, his mother Elena (1884–1954) the daughter of a physician and professor of surgery; he also had a sister, Nadezhda. After the Russian Revolution, the family fled first to Constantinople, then Berlin and Prague, where Zenkovsky graduated in economic history. He then left his family in Prague to move to Paris, where his uncle Vasilii Vasilievich Zenkovsky lived. There, he graduated from the University of Paris in Eastern European and Modern history. He also began to learn English. From 1930 to 1939, he worked in Paris as a business manager. In 1964, Zenkovsky was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship. In 1967, the Zenkovskys moved to Vanderbilt University, where they stayed until they retired to Florida in 1977. However, they still kept up their scholarly output with a new edition and translation of the Nikon Chronicles. Starting in 1986, Zenkovsky struggled against several illnesses, but continued editing The Nikonian Chronicle together with his wife, completing the final volume in time for the thousandth anniversary of the Christianization of Kievan Rus' in 1988. Zenkovsky died on 31 March 1990.

Works (selection) At the time of his death, Zenkovsky had published over two hundred articles and books.

Pan-Turkism & Islam in Russia, Cambridge 1960. Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles and Tales, New York 1963. Russia's Old Believers, Munich 1970.