The SCRSS organises a regular programme of lectures,
film shows, exhibitions, seminars and other events at its premises
in London. The Society is also involved in educational and commemorative
events associated with the Soviet War Memorial in London. Events
are open to both SCRSS members and non-members, unless otherwise
stated.
Venue and Tickets
Currently (early 2021), due to the pandemic, all events are online
Zoom meetings bookable via Eventbrite. We hope to resume in-person
events at the SCRSS once it becomes
safe to do so.
For our standard online Zoom lectures, we kindly ask you to make
a small donation to the SCRSS via Eventbrite when booking, as
we receive no external funding. Once in-person events resume in
our centre, as previously lecture and film tickets will cost £3.00
(SCRSS members) and £5.00 (non-members). All other events
or classes, Zoom or in person, are priced as indicated.
2021 Events Diary
January 2021
Current session until 28 January 2021, 18.00 - 20.00
Zoom Online Evening Class: Russian Language for Good Intermediate
Level
Rolling 10-week Zoom evening class, taught by Christine Barnard,
former lecturer in Russian at Westminster University. Fee for
10 weeks: £40.00 (SCRSS members only). For more information,
email the SCRSS.
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February 2021
From 4 February 2021 for 10 weeks (until 15 April 2021),
18.00 - 20.00
Zoom Online Evening Class: Russian Language for Good Intermediate
Level
Rolling 10-week Zoom evening class, taught by Christine Barnard,
former lecturer in Russian at Westminster University. Fee for
10 weeks: £40.00 (SCRSS members only). For more information,
email the SCRSS.
Tuesday 23 February 2021, 19.00
Zoom Online Lecture: Professor Jeremy Hicks on The Victory
Banner Over the Reichstag - Film, Document and Ritual in Russia's
Contested Memory of World War Two
Professor Jeremy Hicks discusses his book The Victory Banner
over the Reichstag: Film, Document and Ritual in Russia's Contested
Memory of World War Two. The red Soviet flag raised by the
Red Army over Berlin's Reichstag building on the evening of 30
April 1945 has become a key symbol of the Soviet and, more recently,
Russian defeat of Nazi Germany in World War Two. Known as 'The
Victory Banner', it has been celebrated in photography, documentary
and feature film, in memoirs and video games, but is also a physical
artefact. The actual flag is revered in a museum, but an exact
copy of it is paraded on Red Square in Moscow's annual 9 May Victory
Parade, and facsimiles are now used in local parades, demonstrations
and reconstructions in Russia and beyond, to symbolise Russia's
memory of World War Two, conceived as 'Victory', as glorious and
ritualised. Professor Hicks' book examines why and how this symbol
was created, the changing media of its expression, and the evolution
of its message, from association with the Stalin cult and Communism,
through attempts to de-stalinise it, to its acquisition of Russian
nationalist meaning.
The Zoom talk takes place on the Defender of the Fatherland Day,
a Russian national holiday. The day is also marked in several
other parts of the former USSR and commemorates the founding of
the Red Army. It is, along with 9 May, one of the official occasions
when The Victory Banner is publicly displayed in Russia.
Booking: The lecture will be held using the Zoom
online conferencing tool. Please book in advance via Eventbrite
- and consider making a donation to the SCRSS to support our work.
To view the event online, you'll also need to have set up a free
account with Eventbrite, using the same email address you use
to book the event. If you don't have an Eventbrite account yet,
you can set it up before or after booking this event. Once booked,
you'll receive a confirmation email from Eventbrite about the
events, and reminders with the link at two days, two hours and
ten minutes before the event starts.
Jeremy Hicks is Professor of Russian Culture and Film at Queen
Mary University of London where he teaches courses on Russian
film history and literature. He is the author of three books and
many articles on Russian and Soviet history, film, literature
and journalism. Prior to The Victory Banner over the Reichstag:
Film, Document and Ritual in Russia's Contested Memory of World
War Two, his publications include Dziga Vertov: Defining
Documentary Film (London and New York, 2007) and First
Films of the Holocaust: Soviet Cinema and the Genocide of the
Jews, 1938-46 (Pittsburgh, 2012). The latter book won the
2013 US Slavists' (ASEEES) Wayne Vucinich Prize "for the
most important contribution to Russian, Eurasian, and East European
studies in any discipline of the humanities or social sciences".
Professor Hicks has also been consultant on a number of TV documentary
films and the restoration of a film about the Holocaust. In addition,
he has translated the Russian satirical writer Mikhail Zoshchenko
(The Galosh: Selected Short Stories, London: Angel Books,
2000; New York: Overlook Press, 2006, 2009). He is a member of
ASEEES, the British Association for Slavonic and European Studies,
the Modern Humanities Research Association (UK), and a Trustee
of the SCRSS.
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March 2021
Tuesday 23 March 2021, 19.00
Zoom Online Lecture: Andrew Jameson on What's in a Name? More
Than You Think!
Russian language specialist Andrew Jameson continues his lecture
series, this time looking at the special status of names in language
and, especially, in Russian.
A name (in the sense of a unique identifier of a person of thing)
has a special status in language. People become very agitated
if you spell their name wrong. Wrong names can lead to all sorts
of conflicts and accidents. 'Calling people names' is a curious
phrase, meaning 'to insult'. Russian names are a constant problem
in translation. They are a little piece of Russian culture that
protrudes into a foreign language, is obliged to keep its original
(sound) form, and is non-negotiable. Domesticate or foreignise?
How to explain the resonance of a name in the original culture?
Names take us right back into history and Andrew will look into:
Slav pagan names; Viking / Russian names; why there are three
'Sofia' cathedrals; names and patronymics; months and seasons;
Mongols and fog; the emergence of surnames; Russian surnames and
those of other nationalities; Turkic names; town and street names
in the Mediaeval, Imperial and Soviet periods, and their uses
in politics.
Booking: The lecture will be held using the
Zoom online conferencing tool. Please book in advance via Eventbrite
- and consider making a donation to the SCRSS to support our work.
To view the event online, you'll also need to have set up a free
account with Eventbrite, using the same email address you use
to book the event. If you don't have an Eventbrite account yet,
you can set it up before or after booking this event. Once booked,
you'll receive a confirmation email from Eventbrite about the
events, and reminders with the link at two days, two hours and
ten minutes before the event starts.
Andrew Jameson came top of course in Russian language and radio
technology at the Joint Service Language School, and served in
signals intelligence at Flugplatz Gatow in Berlin. After Oxford,
he formed part of a group at Essex University that produced ground-breaking
BBC Russian courses, and simultaneously worked as a sound recordist
in Russia for the Nuffield-funded Russian Language Project, collecting
samples of different styles of Russian, and setting up a sound
archive of Russian recordings. While in Russia, he also met Russian
linguists and a number of well-known dissidents, and recorded
Russian bards and readings by prominent writers (Solzhenitsyn,
Akhmatova, Ginzburg and others) at a Russian literary salon. At
Portsmouth Polytechnic, he helped design a new degree in Russian.
Later at Lancaster University, together with colleague Mike Kirkwood,
he created a well-designed beginners intensive language course
to degree level, and developed interests in translation theory,
Russian lexicology and substandard Russian (slang). He also taught
regularly on adult language courses, weekends and summer schools.
On taking early retirement, he continued to run Russian course
for adults, also worked as a professional translator, and lectured
on English linguistics and English studies regularly in universities
in St Petersburg, Moscow and Khabarovsk / Birobidzhan.
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April 2020
Saturday 10 April 2021, 09.15 - 15.00
Zoom Online Event: SCRSS Advanced Russian Seminar (Day 1)
Our Advanced Russian Seminar returns, presented online via Zoom,
and aimed at teachers, translators and interpreters of Russian.
Focusing on aspects of contemporary Russian language, the seminar
is led by Dr Svetlana Bukreeva, Associate Professor, live from
St Petersburg. Each of the two days is bookable separately. Fee
per day: £20.00 (SCRSS members), £25.00 (non-members).
For full details, including lecture programmes, lecturer biography,
how to book, etc, visit our dedicated Russian
Seminar page.
Saturday 17 April 2021, 09.15 - 15.00
Zoom Online Event: SCRSS Advanced Russian Seminar (Day 2)
Our Advanced Russian Seminar returns, presented online via Zoom,
and aimed at teachers, translators and interpreters of Russian.
Focusing on aspects of contemporary Russian language, the seminar
is led by Dr Svetlana Bukreeva, Associate Professor, live from
St Petersburg. Each of the two days is bookable separately. Fee
per day: £20.00 (SCRSS members), £25.00 (non-members).
For full details, including lecture programmes, lecturer biography,
how to book, etc, visit our dedicated Russian
Seminar page.
Tuesday 27 April 2021, 19.00
Zoom Online Lecture: Andrew Jameson on The Riddle of the Two
Slavonic Alphabets
Russian language specialist Andrew Jameson continues his lecture
series.This time the subject is the Russian alphabet - or rather
alphabets.
Of course there is only one Russian alphabet, called Cyrillic?
Wrong! There were two, one of which was a perfect rendition of
a Slav language (although it wasn't Russian), and one which is
a mishmash only codified in the last century. Who was Cyril? He
wasn't called Cyril, he was called Constantine. Which alphabet
did he invent? The first one. Which alphabet did Russian end up
with? The second one. So why is it called Cyrillic? And how did
the monk Khrabr let the cat out of the bag?
Booking: The lecture will be held using the
Zoom online conferencing tool. Please book in advance via Eventbrite
- and consider making a donation to the SCRSS to support our work.
To view the event online, you'll also need to have set up a free
account with Eventbrite, using the same email address you use
to book the event. If you don't have an Eventbrite account yet,
you can set it up before or after booking this event. Once booked,
you'll receive a confirmation email from Eventbrite about the
events, and reminders with the link at two days, two hours and
ten minutes before the event starts.
Andrew Jameson came top of course in Russian language and radio
technology at the Joint Service Language School, and served in
signals intelligence at Flugplatz Gatow in Berlin. After Oxford,
he formed part of a group at Essex University that produced ground-breaking
BBC Russian courses, and simultaneously worked as a sound recordist
in Russia for the Nuffield-funded Russian Language Project, collecting
samples of different styles of Russian, and setting up a sound
archive of Russian recordings. While in Russia, he also met Russian
linguists and a number of well-known dissidents, and recorded
Russian bards and readings by prominent writers (Solzhenitsyn,
Akhmatova, Ginzburg and others) at a Russian literary salon. At
Portsmouth Polytechnic, he helped design a new degree in Russian.
Later at Lancaster University, together with colleague Mike Kirkwood,
he created a well-designed beginners intensive language course
to degree level, and developed interests in translation theory,
Russian lexicology and substandard Russian (slang). He also taught
regularly on adult language courses, weekends and summer schools.
On taking early retirement, he continued to run Russian course
for adults, also worked as a professional translator, and lectured
on English linguistics and English studies regularly in universities
in St Petersburg, Moscow and Khabarovsk / Birobidzhan.
From Thursday 29 April 2021 for
10 weeks, 18.00 - 20.00
Zoom Online Evening Class: Russian Language for Good Intermediate
Level
Rolling 10-week Zoom evening class, taught by Christine Barnard,
former lecturer in Russian at Westminster University. One hour
conversation, one hour reading. Fee for 10 weeks: £40.00
(SCRSS members only). For more information, email the SCRSS.
Back to top
May 2021
Saturday 15 May 2021, 11.00
Zoom Online Event: SCRSS Annual General Meeting
Open to SCRSS members only. Further information to follow
by email to members.
Tuesday 25 May 2021, 19.00
Zoom Online Lecture: Jack Robertson on The Hammer and the
Anvil: Dispatches from the Frontline of the Russian Civil War,
1918-1919
Jack Robertson discusses his new translation of the reports of
Bolshevik journalist and soldier Larissa Reisner, written during
the Russian Civil War. Larissa Reisner sent regular dispatches
from the frontline of the epic struggles that took place towards
the end of 1918 in Russia, when the fate of Revolution was hanging
by a thread. An embryonic Red Army was confronted on all sides
by a reactionary White coalition, which was backed enthusiastically
by the Western Powers. Her reports, written at the age of 23,
were first published in the bulletin of the Petrograd Soviet,
Izvestia. Some of these articles were later published
as The Front, in Volume One of her two-volume Collected
Works.
The articles included in the book focus on the events that took
place over a 9-month period in and around Kazan, the strategic
naval base on the River Volga taken over by the Whites. Trotsky
later described the Bolshevik retreat from Kazan as representing
the very low-point of the Revolution. Larissa Reisner was an eye-witness
to these events, including the subsequent last-gasp counter-offensive
that took place next to the rail junction at Sviyazhsk. These
first-hand accounts are written in a unique style, combining immediacy
with poetic flourishes.
The Hammer and the Anvil is published by Redwords, March
2021 (available from Bookmarks Bookshop, £10.00).
Booking: The lecture will be held using the
Zoom online conferencing tool. Please book in advance via Eventbrite -
and consider making a donation to the SCRSS to support our work.
To view the event online, you'll also need to have set up a free
account with Eventbrite, using the same email address you use
to book the event. If you don't have an Eventbrite account yet,
you can set it up before or after booking this event. Once booked,
you'll receive a confirmation email from Eventbrite about the
events, and reminders with the link at two days, two hours and
ten minutes before the event starts.
Jack Robertson spent his working life as a journalist. Since
retiring, he has written The Man Who Shook His Fist at the
Tsar, the story of Alexander Pushkin's epic poem The
Bronze Horseman (published by Redwords in 2019), and The
Hammer and The Anvil.
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June 2021
Wednesday 30 June 2021, 19.00
Zoom Online Lecture: Colin Turbett on The Anglo-Soviet Alliance
- Comrades and Allies During WW2
Colin Turbett discusses his new book of the same name. June 2021
marks the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union's entry into World
War II, following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. This
opportunity was seized upon eagerly by Churchill to forge an alliance
that would ultimately lead to the defeat of Fascism four years
later. Churchill had been a leading world adversary of the project
to build communism in the Soviet Union, and had tried to reduce
its influence in the UK. However, he was among the first to realise
that without unity against a common peril, the war in the West
might well go down to defeat as Britain stood almost alone in
1941. By this time, the small British Communist Party was well
established and the wartime alliance saw a rise in its membership
and influence, and the involvement of many of its members in the
armed forces. The alliance itself caught the popular imagination
and saw some tremendous solidarity efforts - on the Home Front,
as well as through the heroism of those who took part in operations
such as the Arctic Convoys. Everyone in Britain was aware that
the war's most crucial theatre, right through to its final conclusive
battles, was on the Eastern Front. As Allied victory neared, won
on the backs of huge sacrifice by the Soviet people, Western leaders,
prominent among them Churchill, quickly reverted to pre-war hatred
of communist ideals. Imagined Soviet aggression prompted a Cold
War for the next 45 years.
The Anglo-Soviet Alliance - Comrades and Allies During WWII
(Pen & Sword Books, March 2021) offers a history of the wartime
alliance and its expression: at government and military co-operation
level, and between two peoples who realised the interests they
held in common. The book also provides the background and some
analysis of the fortunes of communism in Britain in the period
described.
Booking: The lecture will be held using the
Zoom online conferencing tool. Please book in advance via Eventbrite -
and consider making a donation to the SCRSS to support our work.
To view the event online, you'll also need to have set up a free
account with Eventbrite, using the same email address you use
to book the event. If you don't have an Eventbrite account yet,
you can set it up before or after booking this event. Once booked,
you'll receive a confirmation email from Eventbrite about the
events, and reminders with the link at two days, two hours and
ten minutes before the event starts.
Colin Turbett was a career social worker and trade union activist
in the West of Scotland. Since retirement he has focused on various
writing projects, including several on the Soviet Union. He is
the author of The Anglo-Soviet Alliance: Comrades and Allies
During WW2 (Pen & Sword Books, 2021), Red Star at
War: Victory at All Costs (Pen & Sword Books, 2020),
and Motorcycles and Motorcycling in the USSR from 1939: A
Social and Technical History (Veloce 2019).
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July 2021
Events TBC
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August 2021
Events TBC
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September 2021
Tuesday 28 September 2020, 19.00
Zoom Online Lecture: Catherine McAteer on Translating Great
Russian Literature: The Penguin Russian Classics
Catherine McAteer discusses her new book on the Penguin Russian
Classic series, first launched in 1950, which became the de facto
provider of classic Russian literature in English translation.
Based on extensive original research, Ms McAteer's book analyses
the individuals involved, their agendas, and their socio-cultural
context, and is a major contribution to translation studies, the
study of Russian literature and the history of publishing. Translating
Great Russian Literature is published by Routledge (January
2021).
Booking: via Eventbrite. Further details to
follow.
Ms McAteer is a post-doctoral research fellow at Exeter University.
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October 2021
Events TBC
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November 2021
Events TBC
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December 2021
Events TBC
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