KONDAKOV, NICODIM PAULOVITCH. — Russian Byzantinologist, born at Chalan (government of Kursk) in 1844, died in Prague on 16 February 1925. From 1871 to 1887 he taught art history at the University of Odessa; thereafter, from 1888 to 1917, in St Petersburg. He was curator, for the medieval and Renaissance periods, of the Hermitage Museum in that city, and a corresponding member of the Institut de France. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, persecuted and deprived of his property, he left Russia at the age of seventy-six and took refuge in 1920, first in Sofia and then in Prague, teaching his beloved subject at the respective universities.
During his residence in his homeland, K. made numerous journeys both in Russia and in other parts of Europe, especially in Italy, which he travelled throughout and regarded as his second homeland; he also directed various archaeological missions in Syria, Palestine, Macedonia, Georgia, etc. The fruit of his studies and travels consists of several works fundamental to the knowledge of Byzantine and Russian art, namely: History of Byzantine Art, Considered in the Miniatures of Greek Manuscripts (2 vols., 1876; translated by Travinski into French, and completely revised in 1886 and 1891); Byzantine Enamels (1892, translated into French and German); Russian Antiquities in Art Monuments (1889–99); Archaeological Journey in Syria and Palestine (1904); Macedonia. Archaeological Journey (1909); Journey to Sinai (1882); Monuments of Christian Art on Mount Athos (1903); Iconography of the Lord (1905); Iconography of the Madonna (4 vols., Paris 1914–1915; this work studies the relationship between Greek and Russian religious painting and Italian painting of the early Renaissance; vol. III, relating to Italian painting, is incomplete; the manuscript of vol. IV, saved from confiscation, was acquired by Pius XI); The Russian Icon (published in Prague from 1929 onward, under the auspices of the Seminarium Kondakovianum founded in Prague to perpetuate his memory); Memoirs and Reflections (Prague 1927).