Mikhailov Pavel Alexandrovich was born in 1878 in Borisoglebsk in the family of the Zemstvo servant. In the 1900s he met Ivan Alekseevich Bunin and was invited to the inner circle of the writer. Mikhailov took part in reunions of the association of South Russian artists. In 1922, he was arrested and, together with a large group of Moscow and Petrograd intelligentsia, was exiled. He lived in France, mainly in Paris.
He graduated from the Voronezh men's gymnasium (1896), studied at the Law Faculty of Moscow University, from where he was expelled in 1897 for participation in student riots. After he graduated from the Law Faculty of the Novorossiysk University in Odessa.
He worked at the Law Faculty of the Novorossiysk University in Odessa as a privat-docent, head of the law office, and professor of criminal law. After 1917, he was a teacher at the Odessa Institute of National Economy. During the exile, he worked at the Law Faculty of the Russian Department at the University of Paris and at the French-Russian Institute.
For many years he was a member of the Russian academic group in France and was a friend of its chairperson.
