author
Bernard Pares
1867–1949
Drawn deeply to Russia long before it became a central subject in British public life, he helped introduce generations of English-speaking readers to its history, politics, and culture. His life mixed scholarship with firsthand experience, including wartime service and years spent building Russian studies in Britain.
1 Audiobook
Day by Day with the Russian Army, 1914-15
by Bernard Pares
About the author
Born in 1867, Sir Bernard Pares was an English historian, academic, and diplomat best known for his pioneering work on Russia. He studied at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, and became one of the early British scholars to treat Russian history and society as a serious field of study rather than a distant curiosity.
His career brought him unusually close to the events he wrote about. He taught Russian history at Liverpool and later at the University of London, and he played a major role in developing the School of Slavonic and East European Studies. During the First World War, he was attached to the British mission in Petrograd and reported on political developments, giving his writing a rare mix of scholarship and direct observation.
Pares wrote widely on Russian history and public affairs, including A History of Russia, a book that helped shape English-language understanding of the subject for many years. He spent his later life in the United States and died in 1949, leaving behind a reputation as one of the key figures who opened Russian studies to a broader British audience.