Pavel Muratov


Pavel Pavlovich Muratov, also known as Paul Muratov or Paul Muratoff, was a Russian essayist, novelist, art historian, critic and playwright.
Born in Bobrov in the Voronezh Oblast into the family of a military doctor, Muratov attended a Cadet Corps and graduated from the Petersburg State Transport University in 1903. He traveled abroad in 1905-06, after which he moved to Moscow and worked at the Rumyantsev Museum until 1914. He became friends with the writers Boris Zaytsev, Vladislav Khodasevich, and Nina Berberova, as well as the artist Nikolai Ulyanov. From 1906 he began to publish in journals like Vesy, Zolotoe Runo, and Apollon. He collaborated with Igor Grabar on the latter's History of Russian Art, and in 1913-14 he helped publish the journal Sofia, dedicated to early Russian art.
He was a volunteer with the Field Artillery in the Russo-Japanese War. In the First World War he rejoined the artillery, and in 1914-15 was second in command of a field battery. Later he was on air defence and staff work with the Black Sea Fleet HQ at Sevastopol.
Clive James has called Muratov an example of "just how brilliant somebody can be and still be a forgotten man," and called his book Obrazy italii "one of the most dazzling books of its type ever written. As a book on the Italian Grand Tour it not only stands directly in the tradition of Goethe, Gregorovius, Burckhardt and Arthur Symons, but it is better than any of them."

Military works (as Paul Muratoff, with [W. E. D. Allen])