Alexandr Radayev

Alexandr Radayev is a historian, art historian and cultural scholar. He writes essays and commentary, presents television programmes and publishes the magazine The Parnassian (Parnassian Mockingbird). As a creative consultant he works with museums, brands and cultural institutions. He lectures at the Pryamaya Rech lecture series and at private clubs, and gives public talks.

His research interests include cultural heritage, Russian book culture and Russo-European relations in the early modern period, from the late fifteenth to the late eighteenth century. He studies the state institutions of Russia in this era and imagology, the discipline that examines how peoples and cultures represent one another. Another field of his research is the peopling of the Americas: he examines how early modern European scholars explained the origin of the indigenous inhabitants of the New World and how the hypothesis of a migration from Asia, known as the Asian route, took shape. Closely connected with this subject is the mapping of Eurasia, that is, the history of how European cartographers depicted Siberia, Central Asia and East Asia.

Since 2008 Alexandr Radayev has worked for magazines as a correspondent, columnist, interviewer, editor and producer. He has contributed to publications such as Harper's Bazaar Kazakhstan, BLVD, Esquire, Pravila Zhizni, Tatler and RBC Style. He runs the Telegram channels Parnassian Mockingbird, The Golden Age, The Magical East and Gumkonvoy. His books Parnassian Mockingbird (AST, 2020) and Poblamiento del Continente Americano (Editorial ARA, Guatemala, 2019) were published in Russian and Spanish.

Alexandr Radayev collects Russian books, Rossica and antique maps. Rossica is the name given to books about Russia published abroad in foreign languages. On Instagram (@alexandrrdv) he writes a Russian bibliophile's blog about his collection of old and rare books, maps and engravings.