Nicolai Ivanovich Kravchenko (1867–1941) was a battle painter, journalist and writer from the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union.

In the same year Kravchenko moved to Saint Petersburg and entered the class of battle painting at the Imperial Academy of Arts.

The collision with old professors and unwillingness to obey their daily requirements led the young artist to the realization that his further stay at the academy was useless.

With the help of his friend, who then was studying in Ecole des beaux arts, Kravchenko drawings were shown to Professor Jerome, who willingly took him as a student.

Lessons at French academy of fine arts didn't interfere with artist's work at home and drawing some portraits.

[1] When he returned to the Russian Empire, Kravchenko performed a series of portraits of prominent contemporary figures from nature.

He visited Mukden, Liaoyang, Port Arthur, Takuya, Tianjin, Beijing, Tunjou, Yingkou and some places of Great Wall of China.

[2] After returning from a trip, Kravchenko was honored to be invited to Livadia, where he demonstrated to the Sovereign a report on his journey in the form of several hundred studies, drawings and sketches, which illustrated battlefields of 1900, types of soldiers and Chinese, views of Beijing and many other items.

With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Kravchenko went to the Far East and was a witness of the death of battleship Petropavlovsk in Port Arthur, which he captured and vividly described in New Time.

Kravchenko's painting "The death of the destroyer Petropavlovsk on Japanese mines" is situated in exposition of the Central Naval Museum of St. Petersburg.

Kravchenko's pen drawings from life (Oryol, Bison, Olenebyk, Doe, Serna) from the nursery of F. F. Falz-Fein Askania-Nova were published in 1917 in the famous magazine "Capital and Manor".

A large family of Russian battle painter, journalist and writer Nikolai Ivanovich Kravchenko lived in Leningrad before the war.