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 List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, 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 dow ...

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. I ...

, 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 ...

, 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 en ...

, 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 borde ...

, Cornwall. Afterwards, he went on to study Russian and Serbo-Croat at the

University of Nottingham , mottoeng = A city is built on wisdom , established = 1798 – teacher training college1881 – University College Nottingham1948 – university status , type = Public , chancellor ...

, 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. 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 colleges of the University of Oxford, 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 ...

. He retired in 1998. In addition to numerous academic works, he also translated books by Anatoli Rybakov (''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 Victo ...

'') 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 1 ...

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 Jewis ...

, 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 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 ...

) * ''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