Tatiana Warsher

Tatiana Warsher (, 1880–1960) was a Russian archaeologist known for her studies of Pompeii, especially her 40-volume Codex Topographicus Pompeianus.

Early life and family Tatiana Sergeyevna Warsher was born in Moscow on , to a Russian noble family of Jewish origin. Her father, Sergey Adamovich Warsher (1854–1889), was a literary historian specialising in Shakespeare, and her grandfather was a renowned church architect.

In 1907 Warsher moved to Riga, where she worked as a teacher. In 1911, she married a local doctor, Suslov. For their honeymoon, the couple visited Pompeii, and Warsher took her first pictures of the excavations there. Two years later her husband died suddenly, and Warsher returned to Saint Petersburg. There she continued her studies of archaeology with Rostovtzeff, but her main focus was politics and journalism. She became involved with Milyukov's Constitutional Democratic Party (also known as the Kadets) and wrote about political issues. She also remarried, to the widowed brother of her first husband, in order to help raise his children.

With the Bolshevik victory in the Civil War, Warsher finally left Russia permanently. She gave a farewell public lecture in Riga, on the excavations at Pompeii, before leaving for Berlin in February 1922. There she studied at the University of Berlin under Franz Noack and Gerhart Rodenwalt, two noted scholars of Pompeii. In 1923, she met with Mikhail Rostovtzeff, her former teacher in Saint Petersburg and now fellow white émigré, in Paris. Rostovtzeff encouraged her to move to Italy to pursue her interest in Pompeii. He arranged for her to work with the German Archaeological Institute and the American Academy in Rome, and also introduced her to the lead excavator of Pompeii.