Background
Chuvanov, Mikhail was born in 1891 in Usady near Moscow into an Old Believer family.
Chuvanov, Mikhail was born in 1891 in Usady near Moscow into an Old Believer family.
Worked in printing shops before World War I. In the 1920s started his collection of books on literature and philosophy, and especially on Old Moscow and the Old Believers. Collected a unique library of some 20,000 volumes. Continued the traditions of such collectors of Old Believer descent as Tretiakov and Shchukin.
His library has become a cultural landmark of Moscow. Chairman of the Moscow Old Believers Association.