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# The Refusal of an Entry Visa to Mexico to Yuri Knorozov in 1956 and His Trip to Mexico in 1992
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/kogda-iuriiu-knorozovu-otkzali-vezdnoi-vize-v-meksiku-v-iiune-1956-godu-ego-starshii-kollega-glava-kafedry-etnografii-mgu-sergei-aleksandrovich-tokarev-obiasnil-molodomu-deshifrovshchik/
- Published: 2026-11-09T13:29:19.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-09T14:30:07.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Science, People, Ethnography

When Yuri Knorozov was refused an entry visa to Mexico in June 1956, his senior colleague Sergei Alexandrovich Tokarev, head of the Department of Ethnography at Moscow State University, explained to the young decipherer of the Maya script:

> "The Mexican government still obeys the Washington imperialists and assumes that Maya hieroglyphics are only a disguise, and that in fact you want to engage in espionage!"

This despite the fact that the celebrated Soviet scholar had been invited to the country by Mexican organisations.

The Academy of Sciences then decided to send a second scholar with him, and Tokarev himself was proposed as the second member of the party. The trip was scheduled for April, for a period of one month, but in the end the Mexican authorities did not grant the visa.

In August of that year Knorozov travelled to the Congress of Americanists in Copenhagen. After that he did not leave the country until 1990, and he saw Mexico for the first time only in 1992.