Platon Petrovich Beketov (1761 - 1836)

Platon Petrovich Beketov

Platon Petrovich Beketov (Russian: Платон Петрович Бекетов) was a Russian publisher, book printer, historian and collector.

Platon Beketov was born into an old Russian landowning family, from 1798 he lived in Moscow, where he became interested in collecting and in 1801 opened his own printing house, which was considered one of the best in Moscow. Beketov raised the national printing industry to a worthy level. His books were made with great artistic taste and elegance, more than a hundred beautiful editions in all. A number of editions of Russian authors were printed here, among them Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky, Alexander Nikolayevich Radishchev, Mikhail Matveyevich Kheraskov and others. The printing house also printed the magazines "Friend of Enlightenment" (1805) and "Inventory of Books Printed at the Dependence of Platon Beketov's Printing House" (1806).

Beketov was passionate about old manuscripts, especially with portrait miniatures and autographs, and portraits of famous contemporaries. He collected an entire picture gallery, which formed the basis of two of his major projects - the publication "Pantheon of Russian Authors" (1801-1802) and the collection "Collection of Portraits of Russians, famous..." (1821-1824). (1821-1824). The texts for them were written by the publisher's friend and distant relative N.M. Karamzin.

Platon Petrovich Beketov was widely known in the circles of the Russian intellectual elite of the first half of the XIX century. In 1811 he was elected chairman of the Moscow Society of Russian History and Antiquities, a position he held until 1823.