The Unpublished Memoirs of Kirill Mikhailovich Katkov

Abstract This study presents the previously unpublished memoirs of Kirill Mikhailovich Katkov, a Russian painter, restorer and Byzantologist. It describes his life from his youth to his emigration to Czechoslovakia and finally to the United States. The text captures in great detail the milieu and especially the many personalities that shaped and influenced Katkov’s career. The central part of the memoir depicts the Russian interwar emigration in Czechoslovakia, capturing the Czechoslovak state’s support for the Russian diasporic intelligentsia. Another important part of the memoirs is a reflection on the activities of the Seminarium Kondakovianum and on the personality of Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov himself.