Harold Shukman (23 March 1931 – 11 July 2012) was a British historian, specialising in the
history of Russia
The history of Russia begins with the histories of the East Slavs. The traditional start-date of specifically Russian history is the establishment of the Rus' people, Rus' state in the north in 862, ruled by Varangians. Staraya Ladoga and Veli ...
.
Shukman was born in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
to a family of Jewish immigrants escaping from the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
. His father, David Shukman, whose first name he gave to his first born son
David Shukman, was part of the Jewish community who lived in
Baranow,
Congress Poland
Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...
, before emigrating and settling in the United Kingdom.
After college and
national service
National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939.
The l ...
, he took the
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
course at the
Joint Services School for Linguists
The Joint Services School for Linguists (JSSL) was founded in 1951 by the British armed services to provide language training, principally in Russian, and largely to selected conscripts undergoing National Service. The school closed with the endi ...
, in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
and
Bodmin
Bodmin () is a town and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated south-west of Bodmin Moor.
The extent of the civil parish corresponds fairly closely to that of the town so is mostly urban in character. It is bordere ...
, Cornwall. Afterwards, he went on to study Russian and
Serbo-Croat at the
University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...
, gaining a first-class degree. He received his PhD from
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, his topic being the
Jewish Labour Bund
The General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia ( yi, אַלגעמײנער ייִדישער אַרבעטער־בונד אין ליטע, פּױלן און רוסלאַנד , translit=Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeter-bund in Lite, Poy ...
.
Having completed his doctorate in 1960, he took up an academic career at Oxford where he eventually became the director of the Russian centre at
St Antony's College
St Antony's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1950 as the result of the gift of French merchant Sir Antonin Besse of Aden, St Antony's specialises in international relations, economic ...
. He retired in 1998.
In addition to numerous academic works, he also translated books by
Anatoli Rybakov
Anatoly Naumovich Rybakov (russian: Анато́лий Нау́мович Рыбако́в; – 23 December 1998) was a Soviet Union, Soviet and Ukrainian literature, Ukrainian writer, the author of the anti-Stalinism, Stalinist ''Children o ...
(''Heavy Sand'' and ''
Children of the Arbat
''Children of the Arbat'' (russian: Дети Арбата) is a semi-autobiographical historical novel by Anatoly Rybakov set during the era of Stalin.
Premise
It recounts the era in the Soviet Union of the build-up to the Congress of the Vict ...
'') and a 1994 biography of
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
by
Dmitri Volkogonov
Dmitri Antonovich Volkogonov (russian: Дми́трий Анто́нович Волкого́нов; 22 March 1928 – 6 December 1995) was a Soviet and Russian historian and colonel general who was head of the Soviet military's psychological warf ...
.
Shukman was married twice. His first wife was Ann King-Farlow, also a Russian scholar, and his second wife Barbara Shukman who is a granddaughter of Benjamin Guggenheim and Florette Seligman Guggenheim, an artist. His son,
Henry Shukman
Henry Shukman (born 1962 in Oxford, Oxfordshire) is an English poet and writer. He was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford. His father was the historian Harold Shukman and his brother is the BBC News reporter David Shukman. He is of Jewish an ...
, is a travel writer and novelist. Another son,
David Shukman, is a science journalist.
Selected works
* ''Lenin and the Russian Revolution'' (1967)
* ''Stalin'' (1999)
* ''A History of World Communism'' (1975) (with
William Deakin
Sir Frederick William Dampier Deakin DSO (3 July 1913 – 22 January 2005) was a British historian, World War II veteran, literary assistant to Winston Churchill and the first warden of St Antony's College, Oxford.
Life
Deakin was educated ...
and
H.T. Willetts)
*
*
* (ed.) ''The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Russian Revolution'' (1988)
* (ed.) ''Agents for Change: Intelligence Services in the 21st Century'' (2000)
* ''Secret Classrooms: An Untold Story of the Cold War'' (2006) (with
Geoffrey Elliott)
* ''War or Revolution: Russian Jews and Conscription in Britain, 1917'' (2006)
*
References
External links
Full text of doctoral thesis, "The relations between the Jewish Bund and the RSDRP, 1897-1903"via the Oxford Research Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shukman, Harold
1931 births
2012 deaths
Jewish historians
British historians
Alumni of the University of Nottingham
Alumni of the University of Oxford
Fellows of St Antony's College, Oxford
Slavists
Russian–English translators
Historians of Russia
British Jews
British people of Russian-Jewish descent
Academics from London
20th-century translators
Shukman family