Patrick Donald Rayfield OBE (born 12 February 1942,

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

) is an English academic and Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian at

Queen Mary University of London Queen Mary University of London (QMUL, or informally QM, and formerly Queen Mary and Westfield College) is a public university, public research university in Mile End, East London, England. It is a member institution of the federal University ...

. He is an author of books about

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

n and

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

n literature, and about

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

and his

secret police image:Putin-Stasi-Ausweis.png, 300px, Vladimir Putin's secret police identity card, issued by the East German Stasi while he was working as a Soviet KGB liaison officer from 1985 to 1989. Both organizations used similar forms of repression. Secre ...

. He is also a series editor for books about Russian writers and ''

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...

''. He has translated Georgian, Russian and Uzbek poets and prose writers. In March 2025, Donald Rayfield declined an award from the Writers' House of Georgia. Speaking at an event in London, he stated that he could not accept any gift associated with the

Georgian Dream Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia (GD), also colloquially known as the Kotsebi, is a Conservatism, conservative and populism, populist List of political parties in Georgia (country), political party in Georgia (country), Georgia, which has ...

party.

Bibliography

*''Dream of Lhasa: The Life of Nikolay Przhevalsky'' (1976) *''The Cherry Orchard: Catastrophe and Comedy'' (1994) *''

Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; ; 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his b ...

: A Life'' (1997) (and several other reprints) *''Understanding Chekhov: A Critical Study of Chekhov's Prose and Drama'' (1999) *''The Garnett Book of Russian Verse'' (2000) *'' The Literature of Georgia: A History'' (2000) *''

Stalin and His Hangmen ''Stalin and His Hangmen: An Authoritative Portrait of a Tyrant and Those Who Served Him'' by Donald Rayfield, and the imprinted with another subtitle: ''Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him'', is a 2004 political biog ...

'' (2004) (and several other reprints) *''A Comprehensive Georgian-English Dictionary'' (2006) *''Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and the Wood Demon'' (2007) *''Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia'' (2012) *''‘A Seditious and Sinister Tribe’: The Crimean Tatars and Their Khanate'' (

Reaktion Books Reaktion Books is an independent book publisher based in Islington, London, England. It was founded in 1985 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and moved to London in 1987. Reaktion originally focused on the fields of art, architecture, and design. In recen ...

, 2024)

Translations from Russian

* '' Dead Souls'', translation of

Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; ; (; () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright of Ukrainian origin. Gogol used the grotesque in his writings, for example, in his works " The Nose", " Viy", "The Overcoat", and " Nevsky Prosp ...

's 1842 novel (Garnett Press, 2008; New York Review Books, 2012) * '' Kolyma Stories'' (first half), translation of

Varlam Shalamov Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov (; 18 June 1907 – 17 January 1982), baptized as Varlaam, was a Russian writer, journalist, poet and Gulag survivor. He spent much of the period from 1937 to 1951 imprisoned in forced-labor camps in the Arctic reg ...

's stories (New York Review Books, 2018) * ''Sketches of the Criminal World: Further Kolyma Stories'' (New York Review Books, 2020) * ''Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk: Selected Stories of

Nikolai Leskov Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov (; – ) was a Russian novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and journalist, who also wrote under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky. Praised for his unique writing style and innovative experiments in form, and held ...

'' (New York Review Books, 2020)

Translations from Georgian

*'' A Man Was Going Down the Road'' - Otar Chiladze (2012) *'' Avelum'' - Otar Chiladze (2013) ASIN B00DG9QLZ0 *''The Story of My Life'' - Akaki Tsereteli (2013) ASIN B00COQSC7Q *'' Kvachi Kvachantiradze'' - Mikheil Javakhishvili (2015) *''Unveiling Vazha Pshavela'' - Vazha Pshavela, Ana Kordzaia-Samadashvili, edited by Andro Semeiko (2019)

Translations from Uzbek

* ''The Devils' Dance'' - Hamid Ismailov (2018) - with poetry translated by John Farndon * ''Manaschi'' - Hamid Ismailov (2021)

References

"A Man was Going Down the Road"
1942 births Living people Linguists from the United Kingdom Kartvelian studies scholars Academics of Queen Mary University of London Translators from Georgian Historians of Georgia (country) Georgian–English translators Officers_of_the_Order_of_the_British_Empire {{UK-translator-stub