Mikhail Mikhailovich Karpovich was born August 3, 1888, in Tbilisi, in the Russian Empire (today the capital of Georgia).
[2] Following the failure of the 1905 Russian Revolution, Karpovich emigrated to France, enrolling at the Sorbonne where he studied the history of Europe and of the Eastern Roman Empire.
He met Boris A. Bakhmetev, future American Ambassador of Alexander Kerensky's government by chance on the Nevsky Prospect of Petrograd.
Karpovich joined Bakhmetev with the understanding that his stay in the United States would be temporary and that he would be able to return home in time for Christmas of 1917.
Karpovich remained in this position of trust at the Russian embassy until the middle of 1922, when he moved to New York City to assist Bakhmetev there.
[3] He was also a contributor to The Russian Review from its establishment in 1941, working via three-cornered correspondence with his co-editors, William Henry Chamberlin and Dimitri von Mohrenschildt.
"Karpovich embodied in his own personality the finest traits of the pre-war Russian intelligentsia; he was a liberal in the truest and broadest sense of that much abused word.