Harold Shukman (23 March 1931 – 11 July 2012) was a British historian, specialising in the history of Russia. Shukman was born in London to a family of Jewish immigrants escaping from the Russian Empire. His father, David Shukman, whose first name he gave to his first born son

David Shukman David Roderick Shukman (born 30 May 1958) is a British journalist, and the former science editor of BBC News. Early life Shukman was born in 1958 in St Pancras, London. He is of Jewish ancestry – his grandfather, whom he is named after, was p ...

, 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, he took the Russian course at the Joint Services School for Linguists, in Cambridge 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, gaining a first-class degree. He received his PhD from Oxford University, 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. 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 Vi ...

'') and a 1994 biography of Vladimir Lenin by Dmitri Volkogonov. 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,

, is a science journalist.

Selected works

* ''Lenin and the Russian Revolution'' (1967) * ''Stalin'' (1999) * ''A History of World Communism'' (1975) (with William Deakin and

H.T. Willetts Harry Taylor Willetts (1922 – 7 April 2005) was an English scholar of Russian, and English language translator of Russian literatures. Early life In 1922, Willetts was born. Willetts' father was Albert Willetts. Willetts' mother was Alice Ta ...

) * * * (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 Geoffrey, Geoffroy, Geoff, etc., may refer to: People * Geoffrey (name), including a list of people with the name * Geoffroy (surname), including a list of people with the name * Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1095–c. 1155), clergyman and one of the m ...

) * ''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