18 Facts About Bernard Pares

Sir Bernard Pares KBE was an English historian and diplomat.

Bernard Pares returned to London as professor of Russian history.

Bernard Pares is best known for his numerous books on Russia, especially his standard textbook, A History of Russia, which had highly detailed coverage of the revolutionary era.

Bernard Pares was a very active public speaker in the 1940s in support of Stalin's Soviet Union.

Bernard Pares was one of ten children of the marriage between Katharine and John Pares; he had four brothers and five sisters.

Bernard Pares's mother was the sister of Admiral Sir George Back FRS, the explorer and naturalist.

Bernard Pares worked over the next ten years as a school teacher spending his vacations touring the main battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars.

Bernard Pares married Margaret Ellis, daughter of Edward Austin Dixon, a dental surgeon in Colchester.

Bernard Pares first visited Russia in 1898; at about the same time as he was appointed a university extension lecturer in Cambridge.

In 1908, Bernard Pares was promoted to Professor of Russian History, Language, and Literature at the University of Liverpool, which he held until 1917 when he became Professor of Russian at the university's School of Slavonic Studies.

Bernard Pares set his hopes for Russia with the Provisional Government and, after the Bolshevik revolution, moved to Siberia to support Alexander Kolchak's army where he gave frequent lectures to the White troops.

Bernard Pares was awarded a KBE for his services to British relations with Russia in 1919, but until 1935 he was banned by the new communist government from re-entering Russia.

Bernard Pares became Professor of Russian Language, Literature and History, editor of the Slavonic Review and Director of the School.

Bernard Pares continued to write on Russian history and literature, publishing most notably his History of Russia.

In 1939, Bernard Pares retired as Director, subsequently acting as an adviser to the wartime government on Russian affairs, taking a favourable attitude toward Stalin, while deploring some of his excesses.

Bernard Pares was very active in public speeches across Britain on behalf of the Soviet alliance with Britain in opposition to Nazi Germany.

Bernard Pares moved to New York in 1942 where, shortly after completing his autobiography, he died.

The established chair had, after Bernard Pares, been held by Hugh Seton-Watson and Geoffrey Hosking.