1. East-West ReviewJournal of the Great Britain-Russia Society
Spring Edition 2013
ISSN 1759-863X
Vol. 12, no. 1
ISSUE 32

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Great Britain–Russia Society
Patron:
His Royal Highness Prince Michael of Kent, GCVO
Honorary President:
Dr Ekaterina Genieva, OBE (Director General of the Library for Foreign Literature, Moscow)
Honorary Vice Presidents:
The Most Reverend and Rt. Hon. The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, FBA
Professor Geoffrey Hosking, FBA, F.R.Hist.S Sir Roderic Lyne, KBE, CMG
The Rt. Hon. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, KCMG, QC, MP
The Rt. Hon. Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, GCMG The Rt. Hon. Baroness Williams of Crosby
The Great Britain–Russia Society’s aim is to advance the education of the public in particular but not exclusively in
the following: the historical background, culture, the economic, political, social conditions and trends in the Russian
Federation and its near neighbours. This is done through lectures and members’ meetings and the Journal, as well as by
encouraging as wide a range of people as possible to become members.
Prospectivemembersubscribersshouldsendachequefor£20infavourof GreatBritain–RussiaSocietytotheHon.Treasurer:
by standing order, however, the membership costs only £17.
Chairman Stuart Thom
Phone/Fax: 0207 924 2081
chairman@gbrussia.org
Vice–Chairman and
Contact for liaison with
the Russian Community
Dr Elisabeth Robson
(via gbrussia.org)
Hon. Secretary Andrew Baptista
6 Dairyman Close
London
NW2 1EP
Tel: 020 8208 2953
secretary@gbrussia.org
Hon. Treasurer Anna Bennigsen
24 Maida Avenue
London
W2 1ST
treasurer@gbrussia.org
Hon. Membership and
Meetings Secretary
Ute Chatterjee
Mobile: 07884 464461
membership@gbrussia.org
Journal Editor Dr David Holohan
4 River Court
Portsmouth Road
Surbiton
Surrey. KT6 4EY
journal@gbrussia.org
Talks Organizer Dr David Holohan
Tel: 020 8404 1379
talks@gbrussia.org
Further Education Liaison Professor Andreas Schönle
Youth Officer Nicholas Cobb
youthofficer@gbrussia.org
Russian Kruzhok Olga Selivanova
meadolga@hotmail.com
East–West Review
The journal of the Great Britain–Russia Society, registered charity no. 1148802.
Editor: Dr David Holohan Sub-Editor: Martin Dewhirst
Design: Bernard Lowe
Views of the contributors to East–West Review should not be taken as representing those of the Great–Britain Russia Society itself.

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Contents
Painting on a Russian Theme:
An Interview with Janet Treloar
by Dr David Holohan 5
A Tribute to Tony Bishop
by Professor Tony Briggs 8
Zoshchenko on Petrograd
by Felix Balonov
Translated by Dr Natalia Kolosova 11
A Russian Take on Alan Bennett’s The
Uncommon Reader
by Tony Cash 15
How the Two Ivans Quarrelled and other
Russian comic stories.
by Nikolai Gogol
Reviewed by Professor Richard Freeborn 17
An Unforgettable Woman:
The Life and Times of Rosa Newmarch
by Lewis Stevens
Reviewed by Dr Helen Szamuely 18
The Nazi, the Painter and
the Forgotten Story of the SS Road
by G H Bennett
Reviewed by Andrew Sheppard 20
The Boy from Baby House 10:
How One Child Escaped the
Nightmare of a Russian Orphanage
by Alan Philps & John Lahutsky
Reviewed by Dr Mervyn Matthews 22
Istoriya bolezni. V popytkakh byt’ schastlivoi
[The History of an Illness.
In the Attempts to be Happy]
by Irina Yasina
Reviewed by Martin Dewhirst 24
An Armenian Sketchbook
by Vasily Grossman
Reviewed by Andrew Sheppard 26
The Light and The Dark
by Mikhail Shishkin,
Reviewed by Dr David Holohan 27
Sense
by Arslan Khasavov
Reviewed by Dr David Holohan 30
America and the Imperialism of Ignorance: US
Foreign Policy Since 1945
by Andrew Alexander
Reviewed by Dr Martin McCauley 34
The New Age of Russia:
Occult and Esoteric Dimensions
Reviewed by Dr Andrei Rogatchevski 36
James Arthur Heard (1798 – 1875) and the
education of the poor in Russia
by James Muckle
Reviewed by Martin Dewhirst 38
Onegin
Choreography by John Cranko
Reviewed by Vera Liber 39
Tatyana
Companhia de Dança Deborah Colke
Reviewed by Vera Liber 41
Giselle, ou les Wilis
The Mikhailovsky Ballet St Petersburg
Reviewed by Vera Liber 42
Don Quixote
The Mikhailovsky Ballet St Petersburg
Reviewed by Vera Liber 43
Cover illustration and right: watercolours by Janet Treloar.

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Professor Tony Briggs is is an Emeritus Professor
at Birmingham University and Senior Research Fellow at
Bristol. He has published a new translation of Tolstoy’s
War and Peace, amongst other works.
Tony Cash spent forty years in radio and TV production,
including a spell broadcasting Russian language musical
and cultural programmes to the Soviet Union. He was a
founder Producer/Director of the South Bank Show and
co-author with Mike Gerrard of The Coder Special Archive
(London: Hodgson Press, 2012).
Martin Dewhirst had a long and distinguished career as a
lecturer in Russian in the Department of Slavonic Studies,
Glasgow University, where he is now an Honorary Fellow.
He has written and published widely on contemporary
Russian literature and the arts, and especially on cinema.
Professor Richard Freeborn taught for many years
at SSEES, UCL, and has written extensively on Russian
history and culture, including a seminal study on Turgenev.
He is also a translator, novelist, and Emeritus Professor of
Russian Literature at the University of London.
Dr David Holohan was head of the Russian Section at
the University of Surrey. He has written on and translated
contemporary Russian literature – particularly the writer
Boris Mozhaev. He has also translated works from French
and Italian.
Dr Natalia Kolosovais an independent scholar, working
in the fields of theatre and cinema. She is the author of a
monograph on the opera singer Vladimir Galouzine.
Vera Liber is a former Arts Editor of the E-W Review,
to which she is still a regular contributor. She is a free-
lance writer, theatre and dance critic, and a member of
the Society of Authors. She also translates for the theatre,
cinema and literary publications.
Dr Mervyn Matthews taught Russian for many years at
the University of Surrey and has contributed to broadcasts
on Russia and the former Soviet Union for the BBC. He
has recently written his autobiography and some fictional
writing.
Dr Martin McCauley was Senior Lecturer in Politics
and Chair of the Social Sciences department at SSEES/
UCL. He is an authoritative writer and reviewer of books
on Russian and Soviet politics and history, and he runs a
website www.stirringtroubleinternationally.com.
Dr Andrei Rogatchevski is is Senior Lecturer
and Russian Programme Director at the University of
Glasgow. He has studied at Moscow State University and
the University of Glasgow, and taught and guest-lectured
at various universities in Britain, Belgium, Czech Republic,
Estonia, Germany and Scandinavia. His latest book is
Filming the Unfilmable: Casper Wrede’s ‘One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich’ (2010; co-authored with Ben Hellman).
Andrew Sheppard is an Agricultural Economist by
training, an Associate of the University of Exeter’s Centre
for Rural Policy Research and an occasional lecturer at
Bila Tserkva National Agrarian University, Ukraine. He
also worked on an EU-funded project in the Economics
Faculty at Exeter. He has interests in the literature, history,
geography and other aspects of the former Soviet Union.
Dr Helen Szamuelyis a writer, researcher and translator.
She has published various articles on Russian history
and literature, as well as Anglo-Russian relations. She is
currently working on a book on British attitudes to Russia
at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
List of Contributors

5. 15
A Russian Take on Bennett
A Russian Take on Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader
by Tony Cash
I’m fortunate that Maya Donelan is a close family ally.
The qualities that earned her an MBE for services to
the community in our borough also induce her to
share interesting and useful information with those who
might most benefit from it. She knows of my more than
60-year long fascination with things Russian. She herself
is directly descended from Ivan Pushchin, a fellow pupil of
Pushkin’s, whom the poet called мой первый друг, мой друг
бесценный (my first and most
invaluable friend). She also
shares my admiration for
the work of another writer
- Alan Bennett. So it was
no surprise that it should
be Maya who drew my
attention to the existence
of Непростой читатель
(Neprostoy chitatel’), a
Russian translation of
Alan’s gloriously witty
novella The Uncommon
Reader. She’d seen it in
Waterstones in Piccadilly.
I hastened to obtain a
copy.
There may be readers
of this article who have
not read the original
story (may God forgive
them!). They need to
know its central character
is Queen Elizabeth II
who, without being
named, is unambiguously
recognizable from
innumerable internal
references. The plot
revolves around a simple,
but most entertaining
postulate. To the concern, indeed chagrin, of her entourage
and government ministers, Elizabeth has suddenly taken to
literature in a big way. Will her ability to perform her royal
duties be undermined?
When Maya brought me this welcome information,
I happened to be in correspondence with Alan about the
possibilityof hiswritingaforewordtoabookI’dco-authored.
I didn’t know whether he was aware of this Russian version,
let alone whether he’d read it. The language wouldn’t have
been very difficult for him: like me, he’d learned it during
national service in the early 1950s, though he hadn’t continued
with it in later life as I had. In a letter, I told him the name of
the translator – Valentina Kulagina-Yartseva – and explained
that I try to read a couple of Russian novels every year, just
to refresh my vocabulary. This new translation was an ideal
choice, particularly since I had the English original to consult
if the going got sticky, which it very rarely did. Telling
Alan that the translator had made a grand job of her task, I
went on to complain of only a couple of bloopers. When
the royal couple travel to the state opening of Parliament,
Kulagina-Yartseva has the
duke smoking rather than
fuming in the corner of
the carriage. Nowhere in
my dictionaries, not even
in my slang one, does the
verb курить (to smoke) have
the sense of being angry.
Elsewhere, she thinks
that Norman (on him, see
later) has been sexually
propositioned by one or
more of the writers invited
to a palace soirée, when all
that’s actually happened is
that he’s suggested their
names to her majesty. My
letter to Alan continues:
‘There’s one bizarre
omission… which I’ve
been in two minds about
reporting: to do so might
be a bit like informing a
mate that his partner has
been cheating on him,
always a tricky decision.
Anyway, here goes. The
Russian version has
contrived to excise a whole
section about Sir Kevin
and his relationship with
the Queen - pages 25–32 in the English paperback version
(daughter Amy nicked the original hardback). There are
cricket references and speculation on the name Kevin that
might have made the translator weaken at the knees, but
the rest of her work is too confidently done to make that
explanation of the lacuna entirely feasible. Could it be the
allusions to “democracy”? In the Soviet period, maybe. But
hardly today. I’m thoroughly miffed … Are you able to
throw any light?’
Before revealing Alan’s response to the above, I thought
my readers might be interested in learning what I later
discovered about the success of Neprostoy chitatel’ in Russia.

6. 16
A Russian Take on Bennett
Putting the Cyrillic alphabet version of the title into Google
delivers a wealth of material. It’s clear the book has created
quite a stir over there. One lady reviewer, using the pen
name Varlashechka, is ecstatic, claiming the story’s not just
about the Queen but about anyone who ‘lives for books and
thinks that a day without reading a line or a page is a wasted
day’. Identifying totally with our monarch, Varlashechka, has
only one complaint: that her alter ego has no time for Harry
Potter.
One hundred and sixty miles north-east of Moscow
lies Yaroslavl, a city of more than 600,000 inhabitants. It
boasts its own pedagogical gazette. Issue no. 3 for the year
2012 carries a substantial article by a Ms Filonova devoted
to persuading pupils to read more.
She considers the Russian text of The
Uncommon Reader an exceptionally
useful tool in her campaign: ‘reading
the novel, youngsters will see that
everyone has his own way into
books and that it’s never too late
to become a reader; the queen fell
in love with reading on the eve
of her 80th
birthday. (We even
suggested to our pupils that they
should recommend the book
to their parents, grandmothers
and grandfathers, because
we’ve long been aware how
parents are unable to advise
their children what to read,
since they read nothing
themselves.)’ Bennett’s
book, she argues, might
pave the way to other
writers such as Thackeray,
Turgenev, Nabokov and
Proust.
Another reviewer I
discovered online, Lev
Danilkin, refers to the
book as a romanoid (романоид)
concerning a living person. Perhaps he had in mind
the term ‘factoid’, which Norman Mailer coined in 1973 to
describe his half-imagined biography of Marilyn Monroe who,
he said, ‘might actually have lived and fit most of the facts available’.
In any event, it’s an appropriate enough term to characterize Alan’s
tale. Danilkin attributes to Bennett the belief that ‘good books
wean the reader off cliché, not only in language but in life’.
The imagined Queen Danilkin sees as ‘a model of worldly
common sense’ whose behaviour has unexpectedly turned
eccentric. Her attempt to chat with the French president
about Jean Genet is evidence of a ‘boundless will to live’.
In April 2011, the politico-literary monthly magazine
Знамя (Znamya – ‘Banner’) carried a review by Lev Simkin,
now also available online. He uses a very odd phrase indeed
to describe Norman, the gay, red-haired youth who is
promoted from kitchen skivvy to Queen’s page thanks to his
talent as literary guide. He’s said by Simkin to have, literally,
‘a non-traditional sexual orientation’. Is this a euphemism
common to Orthodox believers of whatever faith in Russia?
Is it perhaps ironic? I’ll have to await enlightenment from
someone better versed in contemporary Russian usage. In
any event, Simkin is unstinting in his praise for the story
and is particularly grateful to the translator for providing her
readers with an index of all the literary names mentioned in
the text, a sort of Baedeker of British prose, he calls it. ‘All
in all,’ he says, ‘the Queen reads pretty good books.
The proof is the fact that her chats
are always protracted
if her interlocutor
confesses to loving
Virginia Woolf or
Dickens.’ ‘Impertinence’
is the word the reviewer
uses to describe Alan’s
portrayal of the Queen:
he’s flabbergasted as much
as amused. Yet he is at pains
to point out that the joke
is not really on the exalted
personage (высокой особой)
but on us, the ‘bookworm
readers’.
Reading Simkin’s
contribution made me think
about a potentially analogous
situation in Russia. I wondered
how difficult it would be in
that country today to publish a
romanoid about President Putin.
Which brings me back to Alan’s
response to my query concerning
the mistakes and missing bits in
the translation. In May last year he
wrote telling me that The Uncommon
Reader is possibly the only one of his stories to be widely
translated: ‘I have copies in most languages though not in
Russian … I wouldn’t have been able to sub the translation
as my Russian is too rusty but I like the notion of Prince
Philip smoking in the state coach rather than fuming. I
don’t know about the omission. Maybe it was just a case of
“enough, already”.’
As an afterthought he added: ‘…that Amy nicked the
hardback… I count as a great compliment.’
E

7. Summary of Events for the Summer Session
All talks will take place in Pushkin House at 6.30 for 7 pm
Monday, 22 April 2013
‘James Arthur Heard and Sarah Biller: two English educators and their work for deprived children in Russia’
Illustrated talk by Professor James Muckle
Friday, 3 May 2013
David Pountney (Chief Executive and Artistic Director of Welsh National Opera)
In Conversation with The Rev. Canon Michael Bourdeaux: Staging Russian Opera
Wednesday, 15 May 2013
‘Changing the Russian Armed Forces into a Force for the 21st
Century’
Illustrated talk by Keir Giles of the Conflict Studies Research Centre
Tuesday, 4 June 2013
‘Nikolay Punin – The Obliterated Hero of the Russian Avant-Garde’
Illustrated talk by Dr Natalia Murray (The Courtauld Institute of Art, London)
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
‘The Soviet Union’s Other Poets’
Stephen Capus, Robert Chandler, Boris Dralyuk, Yvonne Green and Katherine Young will read from
translations to be included in Russian Poetry from Pushkin to Brodsky (Penguin Classics, 2015); Irina Mashinski
will read some poems in Russian.
Please see the Programme of Guest Speakers for fuller information or visit our website:
www.gbrussia.org
Great Britain–Russia Society
THE ROYAL OPERA HOUSE, COVENT GARDEN
Provisional date: Monday 5 August, 2013
Please be inside the Linwood Entrance, to the left of the Main Entrance, by 1.30 p.m. at the latest. Date and time of the
Dress Rehearsal may be subject to alteration.
The eagerly awaited return of the world famous
BOLSHOI BALLET COMPANY
In the Dress Rehearsal of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s
‘SLEEPING BEAUTY’
One of the world’s most roman c and best loved fairy tales.
Stunning spectacle, consummate choreography, and music of such sublime, idyllic and exquisite beauty – that it
defies descrip on.
Once again, we are extremely grateful to Mr Victor Hochhauser CBE (now an amazing ninety years of age) and Mrs Lilian Hochhauser
FRCM, whose generosity should hopefully result in 40 complimentary seats for members of The Great Britain-Russia Society.
Maximum two tickets per member but, in the event of strong demand, we reserve the right to limit the allocation to one seat per
member.
AN OPTIONAL PRE-PERFORMANCE LUNCH PARTY WILL BE ARRANGED.
A strong demand may result in a draw for ckets. Will YOU be one of the fortunate forty?
Be in it to win it! Tickets are s ll subject to confirma on.
If you wish to be entered in the draw you will need to no fy Ute Cha erjee before 31 May 2013. You will need to indicate your
wish on the booking form, and post it to Ute, or email her at: membership@gbrussia.org
AN AURAL AND VISUAL DELIGHT.
A FANTASTIC FINALE TO THE SESSION!