Biography of P. P. Pokryshkin, the architectand archaeologist

P. P. Pokryshkin (1870-1922) is an outstanding Russian architect, restorer andarchaeologist, who was the head of the Restoration Committee of the Imperial Archaeological Committee. He was among the developers of a comprehensive artistic and archaeological approach to architectural studies; his works determined the development directionof Russian architectural archaeology in the 20th century. The paper describes the main areasof his activities and reviews little known facts of his biography and his creative life. Thearchival data were used to clarify circumstances of P. P. Pokryshkin’s birth, recreate the atmosphere at his parents’ house as a formative factor of his personality. New epistolary andmemoir materials revealing difficult circumstances of the last years of the scholar’s work inPetrograd (1917-1920) as well as reasons that made him become a priest were identifiedand reviewed. The analysis of archival records containing information on P. P. Pokryshkin’slife in the St. Tikhon Monastery in the town of Lukoyanov in the Nizhny Novgorod Provinceand his death from the typhoid fever in the February of 1922 was performed.