Leo Bagrow
Leo Bagrow (born Lev Semenovich Bagrov; 6 July 1881 – 10 August 1957) was a Russian-born historian of cartography, founder of the journal Imago Mundi.
During this time, he encountered the historical map collection of Arctic explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld in Helsinki and became interested in the history of mapmaking.
There he met Hans Wertheim, with whom he founded the world's first international scholarly journal dedicated to the history of cartography, Imago Mundi.
Bagrow managed to find a new publisher for the journal in London, but stayed in Germany until April 1945, when he was evacuated with the help of Swedish colleagues with the last diplomatic flight from Berlin to Stockholm.
He would spend the rest of his life in Sweden, where he was granted citizenship in 1952 and where he enjoyed the patronage of King Gustav VI Adolf.
After having attended school in Tambov for the first years of his life, he was enrolled in the prestigious private Gurevich gymnasium [ru] in Saint Petersburg in 1899.
The encounter with Nordenskiöld's collection spurred his own interest in the history of cartography, and he regarded the explorer as his "master", dedicating publications to him in 1917 and 1950.
[3] During his travels he also took up the habit of seeking out and purchasing historical maps of the regions he visited, and it appears that it was during these years his life-long passion for the history of cartography was born.
[1] Following the outbreak of World War I, Bagrow was promoted to the rank of Captain and returned to Saint Petersburg in 1916 where he taught navigation at the Technical School.
[6] Towards the end of the war, Bagrow had already published extensively in Russian on the history of mapmaking, and received his first international recognition following a work on the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Abraham Ortelius.
He also began rebuilding a personal collection of maps and related items, and pursuing his particular interest in the history of cartography in Russia and adjacent lands.
Hans Wertheim was Jewish, and German academics, "either through fear or ideological conviction", would not publish in a journal co-edited by a Jew.
[15] His identity as a White Russian, anti-Bolshevik émigré in Nazi Germany, his "prickly" demeanour, his willingness to engage also politically controversial contributors for the journal, and occasional dubious business deals cast a certain pall over some relations.
On 24 April, they organised for Leo and Olga Bagrow (and their pet sparrow) to escape on the last diplomatic flight from Berlin to Stockholm, less than a week before the suicide of Adolf Hitler.
[17][18] The dramatic escape was related in Swedish press; the Red Army was at the time only six to seven kilometres from Tempelhof Airport.
[17] For the second time in his life, Bagrow was forced to abandon the majority of his personal collection of historical maps, though he brought some with him on the plane and some had been conveyed for safekeeping to the Swedish embassy.
