13 Facts About Nikolay Lanceray

Nikolay Evgenievich Lanceray was a Russian architect, preservationist, illustrator of books and historian of neoclassical art, biographer of Charles Cameron, Vincenzo Brenna and Andreyan Zakharov.

Nikolay Lanceray's father died when he was six; he and five his siblings were raised by the Benois family and lived most of their childhood at grandfather's Saint Petersburg place.

Nikolay Lanceray completed high school in 1898 and joined the Imperial Academy of Arts, where his illustrious uncle Leon Benois chaired one of three architectural workshops.

Nikolay Lanceray worked as a practical architect in Moscow and as restorator in Saint Petersburg.

Nikolay Lanceray continued collecting material on neoclassical architects, primarily Brenna, Cameron and Zakharov, until his arrest in 1931.

Nikolay Lanceray was arrested on 2 March 1931, charged with "espionage for France" and sentenced to death, commuted to 10 years of hard labor.

From July 1931 to June 1935, Nikolay Lanceray was involved in numerous NKVD-sponsored projects; he is credited with designing interiors of coast guard ships, Moscow Kremlin offices, aluminum smelters and apartment blocks in Moscow and Leningrad.

Nikolay Lanceray still managed to sign a contract for a biography of Vincenzo Brenna.

For three following years, Nikolay Lanceray chaired an architectural workshop on site of Experimental Medicine Institute, collecting pieces of information for his book on Brenna.

Nikolay Lanceray was regularly harassed by NKVD searches and interrogations.

In May 1938, Nikolay Lanceray sent the final version of Vincenzo Brenna to the publisher; ten days later he was arrested, again for espionage charges.

Nikolay Lanceray broke down under torture and pleaded guilty; this time, he was sentenced for five years in Kotlas.

Espionage sentences against Nikolay Lanceray were lifted posthumously in 1957; first edition of Vincenzo Brenna was published in 2006.