Publications

Books

An Unpopular Cause: A Centenary History of the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR 1924-2024 By Jane Rosen (SCRSS, 2024, ISBN: 978-1-3999-7216-1, Paperback, 176pp, 24 colour plates, £15) "An indispensable history of the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR. [Its] discreet but copious references to source material allow the book to act simultaneously on two levels. It is so well written that it is a real page-turner... and so is accessible to the general reader, but it is also thoroughly researched and therefore will have lasting value to specialists." Morning Star Order by post: Book order form (+ £5 postage within UK). Or available at SCRSS events.

SCRSS Digest

The SCRSS Digest is the Society's journal. It appears three times a year and includes feature articles, reports and reviews on Russian and Soviet studies (history, culture, language), as well as SCRSS news. Printed copies are free to SCRSS members. Note: The SCRSS Digest was originally known as the SCRSS Information Digest, but changed its name from the Spring 2014 issue. We welcome suggestions from publishers for book reviews and from authors for feature articles: email the SCRSS Digest Editor at ruslibrary@scrss.org.uk. Please note: we do not pay authors. See our 2025 copy deadlines flyer.

Past Issues (2004 to the present)

2024

SCRSS Centenary Issue: Autumn 2024, Issue No SD-32
Publication date: September 2024

Ten feature articles delve into the life and work of thirteen individuals who have contributed to the Society's work at different times in our long history.

'SCRSS Centenary News: Marking 100 Years' by Ralph Gibson, Honorary Secretary, SCRSS
'Alan Bush, Composer' by Dr Thornton Miller, Instructional Assistant Professor of Musicology, Illinois State University
'Beatrice King, Educationist' by Claire Weiss
'Harry C Stevens, Translator and Journalist' by Professor Jeremy Hicks, Queen Mary University of London
'Arthur Ling, Architect and Town Planner' by Helen Turner
'Tabitha Salmon, Artist' by Diana Turner
'Geoffrey Marr (GM) Vevers, Zoologist' by Andrew Jameson
'James Aldridge, Writer' by Helen Mercer
'Margaret Llewelyn Davies, Ruth Fry and Edith Mansell Moullin, Campaigners' by Jane Rosen, SCRSS Honorary Archivist
'John Platts-Mills, Barrister' by Bill Bowring, Emeritus Professor, Birkbeck College, University of London, SCRSS President
'Lydia Saharova and Bert Pockney, Linguists' by Claire Weiss
Reviews: Babi Yar and Other Poems (Ilya Ehrenburg, translated by Anna Krushelnitskaya, Smokestack Books, 2024); A Misfit in Moscow: How British Diplomacy in Russia Failed, 2014-2019 (Ian Proud, 2023).
SCRSS Digest, Issue SD-32, Autumn 2024 (pdf, 3.7MB)

Spring 2024, Issue No SD-31
Publication date: February 2024
'Velimir Khlebnikov and "The Radio of the Future"' by Dr Caroline Wilkins
'What Are They Up To? The Formation of the SCR, 1924' by Jane Rosen (edited extract from the forthcoming An Unpopular Cause: A Centenary History of the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR 1924-2024)
'Why the USSR Needed "The Golden Ring" Cities' by Dr James C Pearce
Plus SCRSS news. Reviews: Twilight of the Soviet Union: Memoirs of a Moscow Correspondent (Kate Clark, Bannister Publications, 2023); Whitehall in Stalin's Russia: British Assessments of the Red Army, 1924-1945 (Marcus Papadopoulos, Tricorn Books, 2023).
SCRSS Digest, Issue SD-31, Spring 2024 (pdf, 1.4MB)

2023

Autumn 2023, Issue No SD-30
Publication date: September 2023
'Soviet Teacher-Innovators' by Claire Weiss
'Civil Society in Central Asia in a Time of Conflict' by Charlie Buxton
Plus SCRSS news. Reviews: In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900-1930s, (Eds. Konstantin Akinsha, Katia Denysova, Olena Kashuba-Volvach, Thames & Hudson, 2022); A People's History of the Cold War: Stories from East and West (Colin Turbett, Pen & Sword History, 2023); I Saw Democracy Murdered: The Memoir of Sam Russell, Journalist (Colin Chambers & Sam Russell, Routledge, 2022).
SCRSS Digest, Issue SD-30, Autumn 2023 (pdf, 1.5MB)

Summer 2023, Issue No SD-29
Publication date: June 2023
'Lulling Fears About Satanic "Reds": The Soviet Folk Art Exhibition, 1939' by Assiya Issemberdiyeva, Queen Mary University of London
In Memoriam: 'Jean Turner (9 November 1929 - 22 February 2023)' - tributes by Phil Matthews, Ralph Gibson, Jane Rosen and Diana Turner (SCRSS) and Margarita Mudrak (St Petersburg Association for International Co-operation)
'Highlights from the Archive: Edith Evans and the SCR Theatre Section 1945-48' by Jane Rosen, SCRSS Honorary Archivist
'Soviet Theatre Exhibition, 22 January to 28 February 1946' by Dame Edith Evans (abridged reprint from the Anglo-Soviet Journal, 1946)
Plus SCRSS news.
SCRSS Digest, Issue SD-29, Summer 2023 (pdf, 1.6MB)

Spring 2023, Issue No SD-28
Publication date: February 2023
'Saving Samara's Hammer and Sickle Factory-Kitchen' by Olga Sidenkova
'The Gorbachov Years: What Went Wrong?' by Kate Clark
'Directions of Change in Soviet Education in the 1980s' by Claire Weiss
'Russian Publishers and Their Achievements' by Andrew Jameson
In Memoriam: 'Anthony ('Tony') Devereux (14 January 1932 – 6 March 2022)'
Plus SCRSS news. Reviews: Kutuzov: A Life in War and Peace (Alexander Mikaberidze, Oxford University Press, 2022); Friends and Comrades: How Quakers Helped Russians to Survive Famine and Epidemic (Sergei Nikitin, translated by Suzanne Eade Roberts, QuacksBooks, 2022).
SCRSS Digest, Issue SD-28, Spring 2023 (pdf, 1.5MB)

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2022

Autumn 2022, Issue No SD-27
Publication date: September 2022
'Children Can Change History: American-Soviet Youth Encounters at the Artek Pioneer Camp' by Matthias Neumann, Professor of Modern History at the University of East Anglia, Norwich
'After Russia's Thirty Years of Transformation, What Comes Next?' by David Lane, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University
'Troubles with Titles in Translation' by Andrew Jameson, translator
'Stanislavsky's System in the Cinema' by Vsevolod Pudovkin (abridged reprint from the Anglo-Soviet Journal, 1952)
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet War Memorial Trust news. Reviews: The Blockade Swallow (Olga Berggolts, translated by Veniamin Gushchin, Smokestack Books, 2022); Tyorkin in the Other World (Alexander Tvardovsky, translated by Patricia Wheeler, Smokestack Books, 2021); Peter the Great's African: Experiments in Prose (Alexander Pushkin, translated by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler & Boris Dralyuk, New York Review Books, 2022); Soviets in Space: The People of the USSR and the Race to the Moon (Colin Turbett, Pen and Sword History, 2021).
SCRSS Digest, Issue SD-27, Autumn 2022 (pdf, 1.2MB)

Summer 2022, Issue No SD-26
Publication date: June 2022
'Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books' by Geoffrey Roberts, Emeritus Professor of History at University College Cork
'Nikolai Andronov and the Severe Style' by Christine Lindey, art historian
'Huntly Carter and the "New Spirit" in Soviet Theatre' by Jean Turner and Diana Turner, SCRSS
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet War Memorial Trust news. Reviews: Sergei Tretyakov: A Revolutionary Writer in Stalin's Russia (Robert Leach, Glagoslav Publications, 2021); Eurasia Without Borders: The Dream of a Leftist Literary Commons 1919-1943 (Katerina Clark, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2021); The Soviet Passport (Albert Baiburin, translated by Stephen Dalziel, Polity Press, 2021); .
SCRSS Digest, Issue SD-26, Summer 2022 (pdf, 1.75MB)

Spring 2022, Issue No SD-25
Publication date: February 2022
'Vera Mukhina: Queen of Soviet Sculpture' by Christine Lindey, art historian
'Modern Art Should Seek to Create the Heroic Portrait' by Vera Mukhina (abridged reprint from the Anglo-Soviet Journal, 1947)
'A New Catalogue for the SCRSS' by Mel Bach, SCRSS Honorary Librarian
'Survival and Renewal: The SCR / SCRSS 1991-93' by Jean Turner, SCRSS Treasurer and Former SCR / SCRSS Secretary
'Russian Film Week Returns in Person' by Donald Gasper
'Highlights from the SCRSS Archive: Purrystroika' by Jane Rosen, SCRSS Council
Obituary: 'John Barber (1944-2021)' by Dr David Lane
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet War Memorial Trust news. Reviews: Other Worlds: Peasants, Pilgrims, Spirits, Saints (Teffi, edited and with a foreword by Robert Chandler, Pushkin Press, 2021); The Russian Cold: Histories of Ice, Frost and Snow (edited by Julia Herzberg, Andreas Renner and Ingrid Schierle, Berghahn, 2021); The Future of the Soviet Past: The Politics of History in Putin's Russia (edited by Anton Weiss-Wendt and Nanci Adler, Indiana University Press, 2021).
SCRSS Digest, Issue SD-25, Spring 2022 (pdf, 1.4MB)

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2021

No 3, Autumn 2021 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-24)
Publication date: September 2021
'Alexander Deineka: The Golden Boy of Soviet Art' by Christine Lindey
'Triumph Over Adversity: Gulag Literature' by Andrew Jameson
'To St Petersburg with Love' by Caroline Walton
In Memoriam: 'RW (Bob) Davies (26 April 1925 - 13 April 2021)' by Dr David Lane; 'Zsuzsi Yardley (1940-1921)' by Christine Barnard and Yaffa Clarke; 'Dr James Muckle (1937-2020)' by Diana Turner; 'Eric Carter (1920-2021)' by Ralph Gibson; 'Stanley Ballard (1923-2021)' by Ralph Gibson.
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet War Memorial Trust news. Reviews: Lenin150 (Samizdat) 2nd Edition (edited by Hjalmar Jorge Joffre-Eichhorn, Daraja Press, 2020); The Hammer and the Anvil (Larissa Reisner, translated by Jack Robertson, Bookmarks Publications, 2021); Worlds Apart: The Journeys of My Jewish Family in Twentieth-Century Europe (Nadia Ragozhina, SilverWood Books, 2020); The Anglo-Soviet Alliance: Comrades and Allies During WW2 (Colin Turbett, Pen & Sword Books, 2021); Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order (Kathryn E Stoner, Oxford University Press, 2021).
SCRSS Digest, No 3, Autumn 2021 (pdf, 1.5MB)

No 2, Summer 2021 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-23)
Publication date: June 2021
'Valentina Tereshkova's Spaceflight: One Giant Leap for Womankind?' by Emily Lewis
'Sergei Pavlovich Korolev' by Doug Millard, Deputy Keeper of Technologies and Engineering, Science Museum, London
'Yuri Gagarin: The First Cosmonaut' by Ralph Gibson, Honorary Secretary, SCRSS
'Highlights from the SCRSS Archive: A Wartime Publication' by Jane Rosen, SCRSS Council
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet War Memorial Trust news. Reviews: The Victory Banner Over the Reichstag: Film, Document and Ritual in Russia's Contested Memory of World War II (Jeremy Hicks, University of Pittsburg Press, 2020); My Father's Letters: Correspondence from the Soviet Gulag (edited by A Kozlova et al, translated by Georgia Thomson, Granta Books, 2021); Accursed Poets: Dissident Poetry from Soviet Russia 1960-1980 (edited and translated by Anatoly Kudryavitsky, Smokestack Books, 2020); Memories of Moscow: Memoirs of a Medical Diplomat (Harald Lipman, Pectopah Press, 2020); Yesterday's Tomorrow: On the Loneliness of Communist Specters and the Reconstruction of the Future (Bini Adamczak, translated by Adrian Nathan West, MIT Press, 2021).
SCRSS Digest, No 2, Summer 2021 (pdf, 3.7MB)

No 1, Spring 2021 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-22)
Publication date: February 2021
'Karelia, Art-Contact and Denise Wyllie' by Diana Turner
'The Victory Banner Over the Reichstag' by Professor Jeremy Hicks, Queen Mary, University of London
'The SCR 1937-1952' by Judith Todd (abridged reprint from the Anglo-Soviet Journal, 1967)
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet War Memorial Trust news. Reviews: 'Arctic: Culture and Climate Exhibition, British Museum, 22 October 2020 - 21 February 2021'; Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk: Selected Stories (Nikolai Leskov, translated by Robert Chandler, Donald Rayfield & William Edgerton, New York Review Books, 2020); I Want a Baby and Other Plays (Sergei Tretyakov, translated by Robert Leach and Stephen Holland, Glagoslav Publications, 2019); Wait For Me: Selected Poems of Konstantin Simonov (edited and translated by Mike Munford, Smokestack Books, 2020); A Brown Man in Russia: Lessons Learned on the Trans-Siberian (Vijay Menon, Glagoslav Publications, 2018); The 12 Apostles of Russian Law: Lawyers Who Changed Law, State and Society (Pavel Krasheninnikov, translated by Christopher Culver, Glagoslav Publications, 2019).
SCRSS Digest, No 1, Spring 2021 (pdf, 1.4MB)

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2020

No 3, Autumn 2020 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-21)
Publication date: October 2020
'The Heritage of Vladimir Lenin' by Dr David Lane, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University
'Highlights from the SCRSS Archive' by Jane Rosen
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet War Memorial Trust news. Book reviews: Revolution! Writing from Russia 1917 (edited by Pete Ayrton, Harbour Books, 2017); Russia is Burning: Poems of the Great Patriotic War (edited by Maria Bloshteyn, Smokestack Books, 2020); Vladimir Lenin - How to Become a Leader (Vladlen Loginov, translated by Lewis White, Glagoslav Publications, 2019); Red Star at War: Victory at All Costs (Colin Turbett, Pen & Sword Books, 2020); We are Building Capitalism! Moscow in Transition 1992-1997 (Robert Stephenson, Glagoslav Publications, 2019).
SCRSS Digest, No 3, Autumn 2020 (pdf, 830KB)

No 2, Summer 2020 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-20)
E-version publication date: May 2020
Print version publication date: October 2020
Special issue commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Allied Victory over Nazi Germany
'The Poem That Caught a Nation's Pain: Pavel Antokolsky's Son', by Michael Jones, historian
'The Great Patriotic War in Soviet Literature' by Andrew Jameson
'We Shall Remember Them' by Ralph Gibson, Hon Secretary of the SCRSS and SWMT
'"False Friends"? Soviet Friendship Societies in Britain During the Cold War' by Sonja Grossmann, University of Tübingen
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet War Memorial Trust news. Book reviews: Red Star and Roundel: A Shared Century (Philip Wilkinson, Fonthill Media, 2019); The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II through Objects (Brandon M Schechter, Cornell University Press, 2019); Vasili Tyorkin: A Book About a Soldier (Alexander Tvardovsky, translated by James Womack, Smokestack Books, 2020); Fandango and Other Stories (Alexander Grin, translated by Bryan Karetnyk, Columbia University Press, 2020); The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher, and the End of the Cold War (Archie Brown, Oxford University Press, 2020).
SCRSS Digest, No 2, Summer 2020 (pdf, 3.5MB)

No 1, Spring 2020 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-19)
Publication date: January 2020
'VKhUTEMAS: The Revolutionary School of Architectural Teaching' by Dr Matthew Armitt, Birmingham City School of Architecture and Design
'Coventry and Volgograd Twin Cities' by Carol Brown
'Aspects of a Russian Mystic - Alexander Skryabin' by Simon Nicholls
'Discovering Shostakovich Since 1991' by Professor Pauline Fairclough, University of Bristol
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet War Memorial Trust news. Book reviews: H. G. Wells and All Things Russian (edited by Galya Diment, Anthem Press, 2019); Ragged Trousered NGOs: Development Work under Neoliberalism (Charles Buxton, Routledge, 2019); Dmitry Shostakovich (Pauline Fairclough, Reaktion Books, 2019); Stalin and the Fate of Europe: The Postwar Struggle for Sovereignty (Norman M Naimark, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019); The Women’s Revolution: Russia 1905-1917 (Judy Cox, Counterfire, 2019).
SCRSS Digest, No 1, Spring 2020 (pdf, 917KB)

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2019

No 3, Autumn 2019 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-18a)
Publication date: September 2019
'Russian Language under Peter the Great' by Andrew Jameson
'Memoirs of a Moscow Correspondent in the Gorbachov Years' by Kate Clark
In Memoriam: 'John Cunningham (1943-2019)' by Ralph Gibson
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet War Memorial Trust news. Reviews: Stalin's Master Narrative: A Critical Edition of the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course (David Brandenberger and Mikhail V Zelenov, Yale University Press, 2019); The Adventures of Owen Hatherley in the Post-Soviet Space (Owen Hatherley, Repeater Books, 2018); Putin v. the People: The Perilous Politics of a Divided Russia (Samuel A Greene and Graeme B Robertson, Yale University Press, 2019); Reading and Rebellion: An Anthology of Radical Writing for Children 1900-1960 (edited by: Kimberley Reynolds, Jane Rosen and Michael Rosen, Oxford University Press, 2018); My Cossack Family and Other Remarkable People in Russia and Ukraine (Caroline Walton, Sirin Books, 2019); Stalingrad (Vasily Grossman, translated by Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler, edited by Robert Chandler and Yury Bit-Yunan, Harvill Secker, 2019); 'Natalia Goncharova, Tate Modern, London'.
SCRSS Digest, No 3, Autumn 2019 (pdf, 995KB)

Special Supplement of the SCRSS Digest, Autumn 2019: A Lawyer's View on Russia (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-18b)
The supplement celebrates SCRSS President Bill Bowring's 70th birthday with edited versions of his articles published in the SCRSS Digest between 2012 and 2019. 'Law, Rights and Ideology in Russia'; 'The New Russian FBI - President Putin's Bloodhound'; 'Gay Rights in Russia'; 'Russian Prisons: From GULAG to FSIN'; 'The First Soviet Constitutions, Self-Determination and the Right to Secession'; 'Russia's Criminal Justice System: From Tsar Alexander II to President Putin'.
SCRSS Digest, Special Supplement, Autumn 2019 (pdf, 335KB)

No 2, Summer 2019 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-17)
Publication date: May 2019
'Public Housing and Civil Activism in Bishkek' by Charles Buxton, INTRAC
'The Social Impact of the 1950s Russian Courses for National Servicemen' by Dr James Muckle
'London Russian Ballet School' by Valeria Vinogradova
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet War Memorial Trust news. Reviews: Greetings from the Barricades: Revolutionary Postcards in Imperial Russia (Tobie Mathew, Four Corners Books, 2018); Immigration and Refugee Law in Russia: Socio-Legal Perspectives (Agnieszka Kubal, Cambridge University Press, 2019).
SCRSS Digest, No 2, Summer 2019 (pdf, 718KB)

No 1, Spring 2019 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-16)
Publication date: January 2019
'Churchill and Stalin: Comrades-in-Arms' by Geoffrey Roberts, Emeritus Professor of History, University College Cork
'Russia's Criminal Justice System: From Tsar Alexander II to President Putin' by Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck College, University of London
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet War Memorial Trust news. Reviews: Art for All: British Socially Committed Art from the 1930s to the Cold War (Christine Lindey, Artery Publications, 2018); Sentimental Tales (Mikhail Zoshchenko, Columbia University Press, 2018); Flight MH17, Ukraine and the New Cold War: Prism of Disaster (Kees Van Der Pijl, Manchester University Press, 2018); Everyday Law in Russia (Kathryn Hendley, Cornell University Press, 2017); Republicanism in Russia: Community Before and After Communism (Oleg Kharkhordin, Harvard University Press, 2018); Gregory Haimovsky: A Pianist’s Odyssey to Freedom (Marissa Silverman, University of Rochester Press / Boydell & Brewer, 2018).
SCRSS Digest, No 1, Spring 2019 (pdf, 1.3MB)

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2018

No 3, Autumn 2018
Publication date: September 2018 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-15)
'Russia and the New Cold War' by Kate Hudson, General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)
'Social Enterprise in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Russia' by Charles Buxton, International NGO Training & Research Centre (INTRAC), Kyrgyzstan
'Russian Language Teaching in UK Schools' by Katarzyna Piotrowska-Fletcher, Head of Russian, Harrow School
'The Impact of Soviet Art on British Art from the 1930s to the Early Cold War' by Christine Lindey, art historian
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: Short Stories from Azerbaijan in One Volume (edited by Anne Thompson-Ahmadova, translated by Nazakat Agayeva, Hertfordshire Press, 2018); The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past (Shaun Walker, Oxford University Press, 2018); Russian-Turkmen Encounters: The Caspian Frontier Before the Great Game (S Peter Poullada, IB Tauris, 2018).
SCRSS Digest, No 3, Autumn 2018 (pdf, 895KB)

No 2, Summer 2018 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-14)
Publication date: June 2018
'Fyodor Lopukhov and the Revolution in Russian Ballet' by Tony Devereux
'2018 FIFA World Cup Russia' by Diana Turner
In Memoriam: 'Fiona Wright - A Tribute' by Diana Turner
SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: Inside Russian Politics (Edwin Bacon, Biteback Publishing, 2017); Myth Making in the Soviet Union and Modern Russia: Remembering World War II in Brezhnev's Hero City (Vicky Davis, IB Tauris, 2017); Stalin's Economic Advisors: The Varga Institute and the Making of Soviet Foreign Policy (Kyung Deok Roh, IB Tauris, 2018); Labour and the Gulag: Russia and the Seduction of the British Left (Giles Udy, Biteback Publishing, 2017).
SCRSS Digest, No 2, Summer 2018 (pdf, 1.3MB)

No 1, Spring 2018 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-13)
Publication date: February 2018
'The Soviet Five-Year Plans and Preparation for the Nazi Invasion' by Dr Michael (Mick) Costello, Fellow in Social Anthropology, University of Kent
'European Schoolbooks Ltd and the Russian Book Trade in the UK' by Masha Kulikova, European Schoolbooks
'Improving Business Relations with Russia: The Alfa Fellowship Programme' by Seraphina Davey, Director - Russia & CIS, Taboola
SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: The Russian Revolution (Alan Moorehead, Amberley Publishing, 2017); Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe (Dimitar Bechev, Yale University Press, 2017); The Woman Worker (NK Krupskaya, translated by Mick Costello, Manifesto Press, 2017); Magnetic North: Conversations with Tomas Venclova (Ellen Hinsey & Tomas Venclova, University of Rochester Press / Boydell & Brewer, 2017); City Folk and Country Folk (Sofia Khvoshchinskaya, translated by Nora Seligman Favorov, Columbia University Press, 2017).
SCRSS Digest, No 1, Spring 2018 (pdf, 1.5MB)

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2017

No 3, Autumn 2017 - 1917 Russian Revolution Centenary Issue
Publication date: September 2017 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-12)
'The Significance of the Russian Revolution and the Role of the Peasantry' by Mary Davis, Visiting Professor of Labour History, Royal Holloway, University of London
'The Function of Art in the Worker State' by Christine Lindey, art historian and lecturer
'Women in the Russian Revolution' by Kate Clark
'The Russian Revolution and Avant-Garde Architecture' by Jean Turner
'The First Soviet Constitutions, Self-Determination and the Right to Secession' by Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck College, University of London
'Nadezhda Lamanova - Pioneer of Soviet Clothing Design' by Helen Turner
'The Influence of the October Revolution on the Russian Language' by Andrew Jameson
'The Beginnings of Anglo-Soviet Cultural Relations' by Andrew Rothstein (abridged reprint from the Anglo-Soviet Journal, 1967)
SCRSS news and Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: A Short History of the Russian Revolution (Geoffrey Swain, IB Tauris, 2017); 1917: Stories and Poems from the Russian Revolution (edited by Boris Dralyuk, Pushkin Press, 2016); Between Dog and Wolf (Sasha Sokolov, translated by A Boguslawski, Columbia University Press, 2016); 'Sheffield International DocFest 2017'.
SCRSS Digest, No 3, Autumn 2017 (pdf, 3.3MB)

No 2, Summer 2017 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-11)
Publication date: June 2017
'The Spark for Great Art' by Christine Lindey, art historian and lecturer
'The Development of Soviet Literature 1921-37' by Alexei Tolstoy (abridged reprint from the Anglo-Soviet Journal, Volume 1, No 3, April 1937)
In Memoriam: 'Professor Leonid Seleznev: A Tribute' by Jean Turner
SCRSS news and Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: The Fire Horse: Children’s Poems by Vladimir Mayakovsky, Osip Mandelstam and Daniil Kharms (translated by Eugene Ostashevsky, New York Review Children's Collection Original, 2017); The Idea of Russia: The Life and Work of Dmitry Likhachev (Vladislav Zubok, IB Tauris, 2017); The Russian Canvas: Painting in Imperial Russia 1757-1881 (Rosalind P Blakesley, Yale University Press, 2016).
SCRSS Digest, No 2, Summer 2017 (pdf, 421KB)

No 1, Spring 2017 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-10)
Publication date: February 2017
'Russian Revolution: Hope, Tragedy, Myths' by Ekaterina Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator of Central and East European Collections, British Library
Russian Revolution Centenary 1917-2017: '2017: A Centenary Like No Other' by Ralph Gibson, Co-Chair of the Russian Revolution Centenary Committee (RRCC), together with an abridged reprint of 'Building the Culture of Socialist Society' by Andrew Rothstein from the Anglo-Soviet Journal (Volume 47, Nos 2/3, Autumn / Winter 1987).
'Russian Prisons: From GULAG to FSIN' by Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck College, University of London.
SCRSS news and Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: Moscow - A Traveller's Reader (edited by Laurence Kelly, Robinson, 2016); Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi (Teffi, translated and edited by Robert Chandler, Rose France, Anne Marie Jackson, New York Review Books, 2016); Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea (Teffi, translated and edited by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler, Anne Marie Jackson, Irina Steinberg, New York Review Books, 2016).
SCRSS Digest, No 1, Spring 2017 (pdf, 1.85MB)

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2016

No 3, Autumn 2016 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-9)
Publication date: September 2016
'A New Picture Book for a New Soviet Childhood' by Frances Saddington
'The Soviet Union and the Spanish Civil War 1936-39' by Tom Sibley
'The Nutcracker Ballet: Sweets, Flowers and Symbolism' by Margaret Fleming-Markarian
SCRSS news and Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: 'Sheffield Documentary Film Festival 2016'; 'Vyacheslav Zaitsev in the Hermitage'; The Chaplin Machine: Slapstick, Fordism and the Communist Avant-Garde (Owen Hatherley, Pluto Press, 2016); Radiant Illusion? Middle-Class Recruits to Communism in the 1930s (edited by Nicholas Deakin, Eden Valley Editions, 2015).
SCRSS Digest, No 3, Autumn 2016 (pdf, 2.59MB)

No 2, Summer 2016 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-8)
Publication date: May 2016
'Post-Socialist Nostalgia and Hope' by Dr Michael (Mick) Costello, Honorary Research Associate in Social Anthropology, University of Kent
Perestroika 30th anniversary: '1986: A Historic Year in the USSR' by Kate Clark, former Moscow correspondent for the Morning Star 1985-90, together with an edited reprint of Bob Daglish's Moscow Diary from the Anglo-Soviet Journal (Volume 46, No 3, Autumn 1986)
'The Psychoanalytic Kindergarten Project in Soviet Russia 1921-1930' by Yordanka Valkanova, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, Canterbury Christ Church University
SCRSS news and Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: The 'Russian' Civil Wars 1916-26: Ten Years that Shook the World (Jonathan D Smele, Hurst, 2016).
SCRSS Digest, No 2, Summer 2016 (pdf, 1.7MB)

No 1, Spring 2016 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-7)
Publication date: February 2016
'Lev Vygotsky and his Theory in a Nutshell' by James Ma
Perestroika 30th anniversary: 'Gorbachev and Perestroika' by Leonid Seleznev, Emeritus Professor, St Petersburg State University, together with edited reprints from the Anglo-Soviet Journal (Volume 46, No 2, Summer 1986) on 'Creative Criticism' by Robert Daglish and 'A Dynamic Programme for Culture'
'Jack Lindsay and the SCR' by Helen Lindsay
SCRSS news and Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news.Reviews: Stalin's Englishman (Andrew Lowie, Hodder & Stoughton, 2015); The Maisky Diaries: Red Ambassador to the Court of St James's, 1932-1943 (Ivan Maisky, Gabriel Gorodetsky, translated by Tatiana Sorokina and Oliver Ready, Yale University Press, 2015).
SCRSS Digest, No 1, Spring 2016 (pdf, 753KB)

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2015

No 3, Autumn 2015 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-6)
Publication date: September 2015
'The Development of Post-Soviet Central Asia: A Civil Society View' by Charles Buxton, International NGO Training & Research Centre (INTRAC)
'From Russia with Love: the Making of a Space Exhibition' by Doug Millard, Senior Curator of the Science Museum's Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age exhibition
'SCRSS Exhibition: Soviet War Artists 1941-45' by Diana Turner
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Book reviews: Human Rights in Russia: Citizens and the State from Perestroika to Putin (Mary McAuley, IB Tauris, 2015); Force Benedict (Eric Carter with Antony Loveless, Hodder and Stoughton, 2014); Land of Forty Tribes (Farideh Heyat, Hertfordshire Press, 2015).
SCRSS Digest, No 3, Autumn 2015 (pdf, 1.07MB)

No 2, Summer 2015 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-5)
Publication date: June 2015
'The New Soviet Man at War: Culture and the Construction of the Ideal Soldier 1941-45' by Dr Claire McCallum, University of Exeter
'Gay Rights in Russia' by Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck College, University of London
'Find Out About Russia! A New Website for Children' by Jenny Carr, Chair, Scotland-Russia Forum
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Book reviews: After Hitler: The Last Days of the Second World War in Europe (Michael Jones, John Murray, 2015); Russia and Development (Charles Buxton, Zed Books, 2014); Penguin Book of Russian Poetry (edited by Robert Chandler, Boris Dralyuk and Irina Mashinski, Penguin, 2015); The Original Nutcracker Ballet: A Hidden Allegory (Margaret Fleming-Makarian, privately printed, 2014).
SCRSS Digest, No 2, Summer 2015 (pdf, 470KB)

No, 1 Spring 2015 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-4)
Publication date: February 2015
'Soft Power, Dark Power and Academic Co-operation' by David Lane, Cambridge University
Conference report: 'The Role of Public Diplomacy in Fostering Russian-British Relations, Rossotrudnichestvo, London, 28 October 2014' by Kate Clark
'Opening Our Eyes - The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry' by Robert Chandler
'A Tale of Two VE Days' by Dr Michael Jones
In Memoriam: 'Nataliya Eliseeva (1927-2015), President of the St Petersburg Association for International Cooperation'
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Book reviews: Putin and the Oligarch: The Khodorkovsky-Yukos Affair (Richard Sakwa, IB Tauris, 2014); An Accidental Relationship: Stories of the British in Tsarist Russia (Roderick Heather, Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd, 2014); A Spy in the Archives: A Memoir of Cold War Russia (Sheila Fitzpatrick, IB Tauris, 2014); Nikolay Myaskovsky: The Conscience of Russian Music (Gregor Tassie, Rowman and Littlefield, 2014).
SCRSS Digest, No 1, Spring 2015 (pdf, 394KB)

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2014

Autumn 2014 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-3)
Publication date: September 2014
'"We value and love life too much": Lenin, the Russian Revolution and the Violence of the First World War' by Dr James Ryan, University of Cardiff
'UK-Russian Relations: Through the British Library Looking Glass' by Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator of East European Studies, British Library
Conference report: ‘British-Soviet Friendship and Cultural Exchange: Promotion, Partnership and Propaganda, SCRSS, 24 May 2014' by Dr Emily Lygo, University of Exeter
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: Malevich Exhibition, Tate Modern, London, 2014; The Years of Progress: The Soviet Economy 1934-1936 (RW Davies, with Oleg V Khlevnyuk and Stephen G Wheatcroft, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
SCRSS Digest Autumn 2014 (pdf, 1.25MB)

Summer 2014: 90th Anniversary Issue (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-2)
Publication date: June 2014
'SCRSS 90th Anniversary - Welcome and Short History' by Ralph Gibson
'Homes of the SCR / SCRSS: 1924-2014' by Jean Turner
'Cultural Relations - and Lawyers?' by Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck College, University of London
'Five Special Items in the SCRSS Library' by John Riley
'Baba Yaga in Brixton' by Jane Rosen
'Film at the SCR' by Kate Clark
'Robert Daglish’s Moscow Diary' by Andrew Jameson
'The SCR and the Cultural Thaw of the 1960s' by Dr Emily Lygo, University of Exeter
'Soviet War Graves in the UK and the Impetus for the Soviet War Memorial' by Phil Matthews
'Snapshots in SCRSS Library History' by Diana Turner
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news.
SCRSS Digest Summer 2014 (pdf, 2.12MB)

Spring 2014 (retrospectively assigned issue no SD-1)
Publication date: February 2014
'Gorky Park and the Challenges for Park Regeneration in Moscow' by Sally Prothero, LDA Design
'Deciphering the Cultural Allusions in Spoken Russian' by Olga Fedina
'Crisis Year in Russian Ballet' by Tony Devereux
In Memoriam: 'Phyllis Kelly' by Andrew Jameson
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Book reviews: The Coder Special Archive (Tony Cash and Mike Gerrard, Hodgson Press, 2012); The Capitalist Transformation of State Socialism (David Lane, Routledge, 2014); Devil's Acre: A Russian Novel (Jonathan Bastable, Therefore Publishing Ltd, 2013); The Spectre of Alexander Wolf (Gaito Gazdanov, translated by Bryan Karetnyk, Pushkin Press, 2013).
SCRSS Digest Spring 2014 (pdf, 913KB)

Please note: The journal changed its name from SCRSS Information Digest to SCRSS Digest from the Spring 2014 issue.

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2013

Autumn 2013
Publication date: September 2013
'The Russo-British Chamber of Commerce' by Trevor Barton, Executive Director, RBCC
'2018 FIFA World Cup Russia' by Barry Martin, Chairman, The Russia House Ltd
'Three Years in the Russian Book Trade' by Eleanor Townsend
'Architecture of Constructivism - Universal Forms in Local Socioeconomic and Cultural Contexts: Conference Report' by Mikhail Ilchenko and Olga Zaikina, Yekaterinburg Academy of Contemporary Art
'Developing a Russian Language Teaching Programme for Young Speakers of Other Languages' by Dr Irina Gonchar, St Petersburg State University
'Bringing the SCRSS Art Library Collections to Life' by Clare Weiss
'Alan Bush Concerts in Russia 2013-2014' by Dr Rachel O'Higgins, Honorary Secretary, Alan Bush Music Trust
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: James Arthur Heard (1798-1875) and the Education of the Poor in Russia (James Muckle, Bramcote Press, 2013); Law, Rights and Ideology in Russia: Landmarks in the Destiny of a Great Power (Bill Bowring, Routledge, 2013); An Armenian Sketchbook (Vasily Grossman, translated by Robert Chandler & Elizabeth Chandler, MacLehose Press, 2013); Short Stories (Chingiz Aitmatov, Aitmatov Academy, 2012). Listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Autumn 2013 (pdf, 1.18MB)

Summer 2013
Publication date: May 2013
'Yekaterinburg Nights' by Olga Zaikina
'Yuri Norstein - Animation, Poetry and Politics' by Clare Kitson
'6th Russian Teachers' Group Conference 2013' by Fiona Wright
Obituary: 'Stanley Forman (1921-2013)' by Kate Clark and John Riley
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: Twentieth-Century Music and Politics: Essays in Memory of Neil Edmunds (edited by Pauline Fairclough, Ashgate, 2013); Music and Soviet Power, 1917-32 (edited and translated by Marina Frolova-Walker & Jonathan Walker, Boydell Press, 2012); Smashed in the USSR: Fear, Loathing and Vodka on the Steppes (Caroline Walton & Ivan Petrov, Old Street Publishing, 2013). Listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Summer 2013 (pdf, 605KB)

Spring 2013
Publication date: February 2013
'Vladimir Putin and His Policies' by Dr David Lane, Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge
'The New Russian FBI: President Putin's Bloodhound' by Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck, University of London
'Stalin's Personal Library' by Professor Geoffrey Roberts, University College Cork, Ireland
'A Soviet Design for Life: the Catherine Cooke Collection of 20th-century Russian Architecture and Design' by Mel Bach, Cambridge University Library
'Whither Lenfilm?' by John Riley
'Working as a Volunteer Lecturer in Russia' by Andrew Jameson
Obituaries: 'Barbara Ellis (1922-2012)' by Jean Turner; 'Eileen Bradshaw (1920-2012)' by Christine Lindey
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: 'Russian Film Festival, London, November 2012'; Russian Magic Tales (edited by Robert Chandler, translated by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler, Sibelan Forrester, Anna Gunin & Olga Meerson, Penguin, 2012). Listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Spring 2013 (pdf, 457KB)

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2012

Autumn 2012
Publication date: September 2012
'Three Anthologies' by Robert Chandler
'Translation: The Accommodation of Foreign Literature in Russia and the USSR' by Dr Emily Lygo, University of Exeter
'Working as a Freelance Translator' by Christine Barnard
'Manchester-St Petersburg Friendship Society' by Cath Pick, Secretary
'Shakespeare Drama Festival, St Petersburg' by Sergei Kogan
In Memoriam: 'Valma Welch (1927-2012)'
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news,. Reviews: 'Sheffield International DocFest 2012'; Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov (Geoffrey Roberts, Icon Publishing, 2012); Putin (Chris Hutchins with Alexander Korobko, Matador, 2012). Listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Autumn 2012 (pdf, 726KB)

Summer 2012
Publication date: June 2012
'The Red Army's Liberation of Auschwitz: 27 January 1945' by Dr Michael Jones
'Ivor Montagu and the Film Society' by John Riley
'Researching the History of the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR' by Dr Emily Lygo, University of Exeter
'Scotland-Russia Forum: An Independent Voice for Russian Culture in Scotland' by Jenny Carr, Chairperson, Scotland-Russia Forum
'Rossotrudnichestvo in London' by Ralph Gibson
Obituaries: 'James Riordan (1936-2012)' by Dr David Holohan and Jean Turner; 'Russell Porter (1948-2012)' by Jean Turner
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Review: Molotov: Stalin's Cold Warrior (Geoffrey Roberts, Potomax Books, 2012). Listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Summer 2012 (pdf, 469KB)

Spring 2012
Publication date: February 2012
'The Second World War in Russia Today' by Professor Richard Overy, University of Exeter
'Law, Rights and Ideology in Russia' by Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck, University of London
'New Era in Russian Politics' by Ralph Gibson
'Utopia: Russian Art and Culture 1900-1989' (Conference Report) by Christine Lindey
'Caring for Terminally Ill Children in Belarus and the Former Soviet Union' by Daryl Ann Hardman, Friends of the Belarusian Children's Hospice (UK)
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: 'Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2011-12'; The Art of Revolution (John Callow, Grant Pooke & Jane Powell, Evans Mitchell Books / GMB Union, 2011); The Cinema of Alexander Sokurov (edited by Birgit Beumers & Nancy Condee, IB Tauris, 2011); The Morbid Age: Britain Between the Wars (Richard Overy, Allen Lane, 2009). Listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Spring 2012 (pdf, 405KB)

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2011

Autumn 2011
Publication date: September 2011
'Russia Gears Up for Election Season' by Ralph Gibson
'Russians and the Russian Language in the Post-Soviet Space, Part II: The European Republics of the Former Soviet Union' by Dr Nataliya Rogozhina, St Petersburg State University
'Chernobyl Children's Life Line' by Christine Breden, Princes Risborough Link
'Child Welfare in Russia 1973-2011: An Overview' by Richard Norton, ChildAid to Russia and the Republics
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: Total War: From Stalingrad to Berlin (Michael Jones, John Murray, 2011); Crimea (Orlando Figes, Penguin Books, 2011); The Besieged: A Story of Survival (Caroline Walton, Biteback Publishing Ltd, 2011). From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Autumn 2011 (pdf, 1.28MB)

Summer 2011
Publication date: June 2011
'Architect of Disaster? Zhukov and 22 June 1941' by Professor Geoffrey Roberts, University College Cork
'The Partisan War in Belarus 1941-44' by Russell Porter
'Yuri Gagarin 50th Anniversary Events' by Ralph Gibson
'Mikhail Gorbachev Eighty: Royal Albert Hall, 30 March 2011' by Ralph Gibson
'SCRSS Music Collection' by Hamish Gallie
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: A Room and a Half DVD (directed by Andrei Khrzhanovsky, 2009, Yume 043); How I Ended This Summer (directed by Alexei Popogrebsky, 2011); Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-89 (Rodric Braithwaite, Profile Books, 2011); A Russian Journal (John Steinbeck, Penguin Classics, 2000); Direction - Space! (Maria Grusdeva, Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2011). From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Summer 2011 (pdf, 821KB)

Spring 2011
Publication date: February 2011
'Russians and the Russian Language in the Post-Soviet Space, Part I: Transcaucasia and Central Asia' by Dr Nataliya Rogozhina, St Petersburg State University
'The Virtual Training Suite for Russian and Soviet Studies' by Angela Joyce
'Taking Off Into Space!' by Irena Brezowski
'First Man in Space: Yuri Gagarin Visits the SCR, 13 July 1961' edited by Jean Turner
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: Tolstoy: A Russian Life (Rosamund Bartlett, Profile Books, 2010); Mayakovsky: 22 Postcards (Redstone Press, 2010); Red Plenty (Francis Spufford, Faber & Faber, 2010); The Foundation Pit (Andrey Platonov, translated by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler & Olga Meerson, Vintage Books, 2009); The Road: Short Fiction and Essays (Vasily Grossman, translated by Robert Chandler & Elizabeth Chandler, Maclehose Press, 2010); 2017: A Novel (Olga Slavnikova, translated by Marian Schwartz, Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd, 2010); 'Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1909-1929, V&A, 2010-11'; 'Sheffield 17th International Documentary Film Festival 2010'. Listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Spring 2011 (pdf, 318KB)

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2010

Autumn 2010
Publication date: September 2010
'Prose Poems: M. Il'in and his Contribution to Soviet Children's Literature' by Jane Rosen
'Reflections on the Cicely Osmond Collection' by Jill Cunningham
'On Chekhov's 150th' by Rosamund Bartlett
'Brest Fortress in Belarus' by Russell Porter
'Marius Petipa' by Tony Devereux
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: Freedom from Tyranny: The Fight against Fascism and the Falsification of History (Phil Katz, Manifesto Press, 2010); GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain's Most Secret Intelligence Agency (Richard J Aldrich, Harper Collins, 2010); My Perestroika (directed by Robin Hessman, 2010); Everything Flows (Vasily Grossman, translated by Robert & Elizabeth Chandler with Anna Aslanyan, Harvill Secker, 2010); Filming the Unfilmable: Casper Wrede's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Ben Hellman & Andrei Rogachevskii, ibidem-Verlag, 2010). Listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Autumn 2010 (pdf, 947KB)

Summer 2010
Publication date: June 2010
'Multi-Faith Russia in the 21st Century' by Nataliya Rogozhina, St Petersburg State University
'St Petersburg Association for International Co-operation' by Margarita Mudrak, Chair of SPAIC
'The London Library' by Sarah Morgan
'Business Travel to Russia' by Barry Martin, Managing Director, The Russia House
Obituary: 'Noelle Mann' by John Riley
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: Change in Putin's Russia: Power, Money and People (Simon Pirani, Pluto Press); 'Alexander Deineka, State Tretyakov Gallery of 20th Century Art, Moscow, 2010'; 'Sergei Paradjanov Festival, London and Bristol, 2010'; 'Star City: The Future under Communism, Nottingham Contemporary, 2010'. From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Summer 2010 (pdf, 1.61MB)

Spring 2010
Publication date: February 2010
'Making the Most of the Trans-Siberian' by Andrew Jameson
'Russia: A Country to Inspire' by Christina Gibbons, Operations Manager, Regent Holidays
'European Festival of the Russian Language' by Ralph Gibson, SCRSS Vice-Chair
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: The Retreat: Hitler's First Defeat (Michael Jones, John Murray Publishers, 2009); Moscow Heritage at Crisis Point, 2nd Edition (edited by Anna Bronovitskaya, Clementine Cecil & Edmund Harris, Moscow Architecture Preservation Society & SAVE Europe's Heritage, 2009); Three Men on the Metro (Andy Croft, WN Herbert & Paul Summers, Five Leaves Publications, 2009); The Forsaken. From the Great Depression to the Gulags: Hope and Betrayal in Stalin's Russia (Tim Tzouliadis, Little Brown, 2008); 'The Grain Store, Royal Shakespeare Company, 2009'; 'The Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival, November 2009'; Leningrad (directed by Alexander Buravsky, Kobura Productions, 2009). From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Spring 2010 (pdf, 104KB)

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2009

Autumn 2009
Publication date: September 2009
'The Nazi-Soviet Pact Reconsidered' by Professor Geoffrey Roberts, University College Cork
'Windows on War: TASS Posters in the Special Collections Department of the University of Nottingham' by Professor Cynthia Marsh, University of Nottingham
'Diaghilev in England: The Continuing Influence' by Charlotte Kasner
Obituary: 'Sir Edward Downes (1924-2009)' by John Riley
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Review: A Russian Diary 2010: Russian Children's Books 1920-1935 (edited by Julian Rothenstein, Redstone Press, 2009). From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Autumn 2009 (pdf, 320KB)

Summer 2009
Publication date: June 2009
'The World of Art' by Christine Lindey, art historian
'Intute: Russian Social Sciences Resources Online' by Angela Joyce, Bristol University
'Reflections on Russian Children's Poetry of the Early Soviet Era' by Jill Cunningham
Obituary: 'Sheila Clarke (1936-2009)' by Jean Turner
Obituary: 'Vladimir Molchanov' by Jean Turner
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: Lingvo-Kulturologiya [Linguistics and Culture] (EI Zinovyeva & EE Yurkov, 2006); 'Rodchenko and Popova: Defining Constructivism, Tate Modern, 2009'. From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Summer 2009 (pdf, 506KB)

Spring 2009
Publication date: February 2009
'The Soviet Union's Contribution to the Defeat of Japanese Militarism' by Keith Bennett
'Radio Rossii' by L Kaplunova
Obituary: 'William Pomeroy (1916-2009)' by Jean Turner
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: A History of Russian Cinema (Birgit Beumers, Berg Publishers, 2008); Defiance (directed by Edward Zwick, USA, 2008); Come and See (directed by Elem Klimov, Belorussia, 1985). From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Spring 2009 (pdf, 685KB)

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2008

Winter 2008
Publication date: November 2008
'2nd Russian Film Festival in London: Two Views' by John Riley and Charles Stewart
'Along Russian Waterways' by Tony Devereux
'SCRSS Children's Literature Collection' by Jill Cunningham
'SCRSS Archive: The First Decade' by Barbara Ellis and John Cunningham
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: 'Cold War Modern: Design 1945-1970, Victoria & Albert Museum, London'; Bloomsbury Ballerina: Lydia Lopokhova, Imperial Dancer and Mrs John Maynard Keynes (Judith Mackrell, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008); The Russian Language in Britain: A Historical Study of Learners and Teachers (James Muckle, Bramcote Press). From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Winter 2008 (pdf, 193KB)

Summer 2008
Publication date: July 2008
'Mikhail Andreyevich Savitksy' by Christine Lindey, lecturer in art history at Birkbeck College, University of London
'Study in Russia' by Dr Roy Bivon
'New Russian Teachers Group' by Fiona Wright
'Teaching Russian Language and Culture in the UK' by Andrew Jameson
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: Leningrad: State of Siege (Michael Jones, John Murray Publishers, 2008); Comrade Jim: The Spy Who Played for Spartak (Jim Riordan, Fourth Estate, 2008); Francis Klingender 1907-1955: A Marxist Historian Out of Town (Gill Vista Marx Press, 2008). From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Summer 2008 (pdf, 859 KB)

Spring 2008
Publication date: February 2008
'From Moscow to Beijing: An Olympic Journey by Jim Riordan, Visiting Professor in Sports Studies at the University of Worcester
'Elections in Russia' by Ralph Gibson, RIA Novosti Press Agency, SCRSS Vice-Chair
'The Russians are Coming!!? The UK Russian Community Acquires a Voice in Multi-Cultural Britain' by Andrew Jameson,
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: 'From Russia: French and Russian Master Paintings 1870-1925 from Moscow and St Petersburg, Royal Academy of Arts, London'; 'The President's Holiday, Hampstead Theatre, London'. From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Spring 2008 (pdf, 174 KB)

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2007

Autumn 2007
Publication date: November 2007
'Russia and the New Cold War' by Kate Hudson, Chair of CND and Head of Social & Policy Studies at London South Bank University
'The Campbell Creighton Collection in the SCRSS Archive ' by Charlotte Kasner
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: Seven Years that Changed the World: Perestroika in Perspective (Archie Brown, Oxford University Press, 2007); Piggy Foxy and the Sword of Revolution: Bolshevik Self-Portraits (Edited by Alexander Vatlin and Larisa Malashenko, Yale University Press, 2007); Lively and Other Stories (Boris Mozhaev, translated by David Holohan, Hodgson Press, 2007); Bolshoi Ballet London Season: London Coliseum, July-August 2007; Academica Rossica's First Russian Film Festival: Opening Night, 27 September 2007. From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest Autumn 2007 (pdf, 169 KB)

Summer 2007
'On the 90th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution' by Kate Clark, former Moscow correspondent of the Morning Star and The Scotsman during the Gorbachev era
'Art and the Russian Revolution' by Christine Lindey, lecturer in art history
Obituary: 'Jack Gaster'
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: Moscow: A Cultural and Literary History (Caroline Brooke, Signal Books Ltd, 2006); Rossiya i Britaniya XVI-XIX veka (SR Dolgova and TA Lapteva, Editor in Chief Tatiana Skalkina, Drevlekhranilishche, 2007); Stalingrad: How the Red Army Triumphed (Michael K Jones, Pen and Sword Books Ltd, 2007); War, Wine and Valour: Five Years Fighting the Nazis and Celebrating the Sixty Years of Peace their Destruction has Brought (Douglas M Baker, 2005); Soviet Propaganda DVD set (Odeon Entertainment). From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest, Summer 2007 (pdf, 75 KB)

Spring 2007
'An Englishman at Russian National Unity Day, 4 November 2006' by Andrew Jameson, Chair of the Russian Committee of the Association for Language Learning and Member of the Presidium of MAPRYAL
'Does Russia Want Tourists?' by Christina Gibbons, Operations Manager, Regent Holidays
Obituary: 'Fr Hugh Bridge (1948-2007)'
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: Rossica International Review of Russian Culture, Issue 16: Tretyakov Gallery (Editor in Chief, Svetlana Adjoubei, Academica Rossica); Incidences (Daniil Kharms, translated by Neil Cornwell, Serpent's Tail, 2006); Shostakovich: His Life and Music (Brian Morton, Haus Publishing, 2006). Listings.
SCRSS Information Digest, Spring 2007 (pdf, 57KB)

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2006

Autumn 2006
'The New Shostakovich Archive' by Lewis Owens, President of the UK Shostakovich Society
'Shostakovich Centenary Celebrations' by John Riley
'Gems from the SCRSS Library: Soviet Humour: Stories and Cartoons from Crocodile (selected and translated by Peter Tempest, SCR, 1949, London)' by Jane Rosen
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: The Food and Cooking of Russia (Lesley Chamberlain, University of Nebraska Press, 2006); Turkish Gambit (Boris Akunin, translated by Andrew Bromfield, Phoenix, 2004); The Death of Achilles (Boris Akunin, translated by Andrew Bromfield, Phoenix, 2005). From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest, Autumn 2006 (pdf, 188KB)

Spring 2006
'SCR Architects and Planners Group 1945-1991' by Jean Turner, Honorary Secretary of the SCRSS
Obituary: 'Terry Wade (1930-2005) - Britain's Foremost Russian Language Specialist' by Andrew Jameson
'Gems from the SCRSS Library: Moskva Rekonstruiruetsya (Moscow under Reconstruction)' by Jane Rosen
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: Using Russian Synonyms (Terence Wade and Nijole White, Cambridge University Press, 2004); Alexander Sukorov Film DVDs: Spiritual Voices and A Soldier's Dream, Confession, Sonata for Viola (Ideal audience); Vernost' dolgu i lyudyam (KM Koroleva, 2003). From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest, Spring 2006 (pdf, 160KB)

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2005

Winter 2005
'Russian Football Today' by Jim Riordan, Emeritus Professor of Russian at Surrey University, Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and President of the European Sports History Society
'Rugby League in the USSR...' by David Hyatt
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow (Adam Zamoyski, Harper Perennial, 2004); The Priest Who Was Never Baptized: Stories Factual and Fictional of Russian Life in the Nineteenth Century (Nikolai Leskov, translated by James Muckle, Bramcote Press, 2004). From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest, Winter 2005 (pdf, 160KB)

Summer 2005
'Reflections on the 60th Anniversary of the End of the Second World War' by Geoffrey Roberts, Professor of History at University College Cork
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: The Cranes are Flying DVD (Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957, The Criterion Collection, Non 146); Comrade Pavlik: The Rise and Fall of a Soviet Boy Hero (Catriona Kelly, Granta, 2005). From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest, Summer 2005 (pdf, 199KB)

Spring 2005
'O! This Learning, What a Thing It Is' by James Muckle, Special Professor in Comparative Education at the University of Nottingham
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: Dmitri Shostakovich: A Life in Film (John Riley, KINOfiles Filmmakers' Companion Series, IB Tauris, 2004); Alexander Medvedkin (Emma Widdis, KINOfiles Filmmakers' Companion Series, IB Tauris, 2004); Kira Muratova (Jane Taubman, KINOfiles Filmmakers' Companion Series, IB Tauris, 2004); Nikita Mikhalkov (Birgit Beumers, KINOfiles Filmmakers' Companion Series, IB Tauris, 2004); Selected Poems of Yevgeny Abramovitch Baratynsky (translated by Jill Higgs, Hub Editions, 2004). From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest, Spring 2005 (pdf, 121KB)

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2004

Autumn 2004
'Russian Roulette?' by Christopher Barlow, journalist and former news editor at Channel 4
Plus SCRSS news, Soviet Memorial Trust Fund news. Reviews: The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia (Richard Overy, Allen Lane, 2004); The Voice of Leningrad: The Story of a Siege (CS Walton, Garrett County Press, 2003); Paul Robeson: Artist and Activist on Records, Radio and Television, 3rd edition (Allan Lord Thompson, 2004); The Taste of Dreams: An Obsession with Russia and Caviar (Vanora Bennett, Review - Imprint of Headline Book Publishing, 2003); Russian Cinema (David Gillespie, Pearson, 2003). From the Russian Press, listings.
SCRSS Information Digest, Autumn 2004 (pdf, 1.35MB)

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