author
Bernard Pares
1867–1949
A pioneering British historian of Russia, he helped bring Russian history and culture into English-speaking universities at a time when the subject was still new. His life mixed scholarship with public service, including wartime work in Petrograd during the First World War.
1 Audiobook
Day by Day with the Russian Army, 1914-15
by Bernard Pares
About the author
Born in Surrey in 1867, Sir Bernard Pares became one of Britain’s best-known early specialists on Russia. After studying at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, he spent years teaching before turning his growing interest in Russian history into a full academic career.
He visited Russia repeatedly from the late 1890s onward and played a major part in building Russian studies in Britain. At the University of Liverpool he founded the first School of Russian Studies at a British university, and he later became the first professor of Russian at the University of London.
Pares was not only a scholar but also a public figure. During the First World War he worked in Petrograd with the British Foreign Office, reporting on events in Russia and helping with wartime information work. He died in 1949, remembered for making Russia’s history, politics, and culture more accessible to British readers and students.