After graduating from
Moscow University in 1903, he worked in a women's
seminary in
Tver, went to Germany in 1905 where he worked for one year in the
Berlin University, then came back to Tver to give lectures on the history of culture in the Tver People's University. Since 1908 he taught history in Moscow high schools and lectured in several Moscow universities. He spent 1911 and 1912 in Rome making excursions to museums for Russian teachers and giving lectures on the arts of ancient
Greece and
Rome. In 1915 he was appointed professor of history at the Moscow City People's University, and professor of social science at the Moscow University in 1920. Since 1933 he was one of the editors of the
Great Soviet Encyclopedia and the
Small Soviet Encyclopedia. He died in 1940. == Sources ==