Savelov, L.M.: From Bosphorus to the Pyramids

Title

Ot Bosfora k piramidam, Moskva 1916

From Bosphorus to the Pyramids

Keywords

Summary

The book presents Leonid Savelov’s travel impressions from his journey to Egypt, accompanied by photographic illustrations and divided into twelve chapters. The illustrations feature images of local architecture, both ancient and modern, as well as landscapes. The author’s style is literary and personal, offering reflections on the places he visits, his impressions, and vivid descriptions of these exotic lands. The first chapter is titled “From Moscow to the Bosporus”, while chapter two is titled “Constantinople”. Chapter three covers the trip from Constantinople to Cairo, and chapter four focuses on the city of Cairo. Chapter five explores its mosques, while chapter six moves on to Memphis and Saqqara. Chapter seven is titled “From Cairo to Aswan”, chapter eight is devoted to the island of Philae, chapter nine to Luxor and Karnak, and chapters ten and eleven to Thebes. Chapter twelve describes the author’s return journey from Thebes to Cairo and Alexandria, where he boards a Russian ship for home. In the book’s closing lines, the author notes that he is writing more than a year after the journey’s end and still has vivid images of this “homeland of marvels” before his eyes.

Bio

Leonid Savelov was a Russian historian, novelist, and memoirist, born in Warsaw into a noble family. His main area of research was the genealogy of the Russian nobility, which he approached with scientific rigour. Among Savelov’s numerous works on genealogy is the extensive Bibliographic Index on the History, Heraldry, and Genealogy of the Russian Nobility (Ostrogozhsk, 1897). From 1907 to 1912, Savelov delivered the first course on genealogy in Russia at the Moscow Archaeological Institute, where he was one of the founders. His lectures were published in Moscow between 1908 and 1909. From 1908 to 1916, he headed the Moscow branch of the archive of the Ministry of the Imperial Court. During World War I, he served as the head of the sanitary and evacuation department of the Red Cross. After the October Revolution, Savelov emigrated from Russia, continuing his scholarly work abroad. He settled in Greece in 1920 and published his seminal work, Ancient Russian Nobility, in 1933. In 1937, he moved to the United States, where he founded the Russian Historical Genealogical Society and the genealogical journal “Novik”. He died in the U.S. in 1947.

Sources

D. Korsakov, L.M. Savelov i ego trudy po russkoi genealogii, Moskva 1900;

A. Mil’tsyn, L.M. Savelov v emigratsii, in Kul’turnoe nasledie rossiiskoi emigratsii, 1917-1940: materialy mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii, sent. 1993 g., t. 1, Moskva 1994. p. 447-450;

O. Naumov, Leonid Mikhailovich Savelov – arkhivist, “Otechestvennye arkhivy”, 2005, 3, p. 3-12;

O. Naumov, Zhurnal “Novik” i russkoe genealogičeskoe znanie, in Russkaia genealogiia v emigratsii: Izbrannye stat’i zhurnala “Novik”, ed. by O. Naumov, Moskva 2018, p. 5-28.

M.E.

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