A People Passing Rude is essential reading for anyone interested in the relationship between Britain and Russia and the Soviet Union. Anthony Cross, the doyen of this field, here adds to his many previous collections and monographs on this subject with a collection of essays in which new material, new connections and new insights emerge on almost every page.
Rebecca Beasley, Slavonica, Vol. 20, No. 1 (2014): 46-47
[This collection], concentrating primarily on the first half of the twentieth century, gather together articles that shed light on interesting and sometime little-known aspects.
—Donald Rayfield, Times Literary Supplement, March 2014: 11-12
This volume entertains as much as it enlightens and no summary can adequately convey its richness of detail and subtlety of argument. Although,furthermore, it is of undoubted significance as a historical survey, it is far more than that. Time and again we are reminded of the ambiguities in British attitudes towards Russia and Russian culture, covering the spectrum from extravagant praise to profound distrust, and embracing purely negative traits such as ignorance, fear, stereotyping and condescension. How many would argue that such reactions and attitudes belong simply to the past?
—Roger Cockrell, Slavonic and East European Review, 92.1 (2014): 139-40
Overall, the collection presents an impressive body of research on Anglo-Russian cultural exchange, and should be of great interest to any Slavists desiring to know more about this subject.
—Alexander Burry, Slavic and East European Journal, 57.4 (Winter 2013): 673-75
[This volume] makes a valuable contribution and is essential reading for anyone interested in the Russian influence on British culture.
—David Holohan, East-West Review, 12.3 (2013): 25-28
For people interested in how Great Britain reacted to Russian culture, this book is a real treasure chest because it has so many valuable pieces and its scope is so impressive [...] This is definitely one of the strongest collections of articles I have had the privilege to review.
—Gayla Diment, The Russian Review, 72.2 (2013), pp. 305-06.
The volume presents specific aspects of British engagement with Russia from the eighteenth century to the present day in such major areas of cultural life as literature, theatre, art, music and cinema. The volume’s scope is impressive.
—Patrick O'Meara, Journal of European Studies, 43 (2013), pp. 189-90.
Described by the sixteenth-century English poet George Turbervile as "a people passing rude, to vices vile inclin’d", the Russians waited some three centuries before their subsequent cultural achievements—in music, art and particularly literature—achieved widespread recognition in Britain.
The essays in this stimulating collection attest to the scope and variety of Russia’s influence on British culture. They move from the early nineteenth century—when Byron sent his hero Don Juan to meet Catherine the Great, and an English critic sought to come to terms with the challenge of Pushkin—to a series of Russian-themed exhibitions at venues including the Crystal Palace and Earls Court. The collection looks at British encounters with Russian music, the absorption with Dostoevskii and Chekhov, and finishes by shedding light on Britain’s engagement with Soviet film.
Edited by Anthony Cross, one of the world’s foremost authorities on Anglo-Russian relations, A People Passing Rude is essential reading for anyone with an interest in British and Russian cultures and their complex relationship.
Click here to listen to Anthony Cross's interview on A People Passing Rude, broadcast by The Voice of Russia on June 2013.
Click here to listen to Anthony Cross's interview on A People Passing Rude, broadcast by The Voice of Russia on June 2013.
A People Passing Rude: British Responses to Russian Culture
Anthony Cross (ed.) | November 2012
xvi + 331 | 26 illustrations | 6.14" x 9.21" (234 x 156 mm)
ISBN Paperback: 9781909254107
ISBN Hardback: 9781909254114
ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781909254121
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 9781909254138
ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 9781909254145
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0022
BIC subject codes: 1DVUA (Russia), HBG (General and World History), DS (Literature: History and Criticism); BISAC: SOC000000 (SOCIAL SCIENCE / General), SOC002000 (SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / General), SOC002010 (SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social); OCLC Number: 821261988.
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1. By Way of Introduction: British Reception, Perception and Recognition of Russian Culture
Anthony Cross
2. Byron, Don Juan and Russia
Peter Cochran
3. William Henry Leeds and Early British Responses to Russian Literature
Anthony Cross
4. Russian Icons through British Eyes, 1830-1930
Richard Marks
5. The Crystal Palace Exhibition and Britain’s Encounter with Russia
Scott Ruby
6. An 'Extraordinary Engagement': A Russian Opera Company in Victorian Britain
Tamsin Alexander
7. Russian Folk Tales for English Readers: Two Personalities and Two Strategies in British Translation of the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
Tatiana Bogrdanova
8. 'Wilful Melancholy' or 'A Vigorous and Manly Optimism'?: Rosa Newmarch and the Struggle against Decadence in the British Reception of Russian Music, 1897-1917
Philip Ross Bullock
9. 'Infantine Smudges of Paint… Infantine Rudeness of Soul': British Reception of Russian Art at the Exhibitions of the Allied Artists’ Association, 1908-1911
Louise Hardiman
10. Crime and Publishing: How Dostoevskii Changed the British Murder
Muireann Maguire
11. Stephen Graham and Russian Spirituality: The Pilgrim in Search of Salvation
Michael Hughes
12. Jane Harrison as an Interpreter of Russian Culture in the 1910s-1920s
Alexandra Smith
13. Aleksei Remizov’s English-language Translators: New Material
Marilyn Schwinn Smith
14. Chekhov and the Buried Life of Katherine Mansfield
Rachel Polonsky
15. 'A Gaul who has chosen impeccable Russian as his medium': Ivan Bunin and the English Myth of Russia in the Early Twentieth Century
Svetlana Klimova
16. Russia and Russian Culture in The Criterion, 1922-1939
Olga Ushakova
17. 'Racy of the Soil': Filipp Maliavin’s London Exhibition of 1935
Nicola Kozicharow
18. Mrs Churchill Goes to Russia: The Wartime Gift-Exchange between Britain and the Soviet Union
Claire Knight
19. Unity in Difference: The Representation of Life in the Soviet Union through Isotype
Emma Minns
20. 'Sputniks and Sideboards': Exhibiting the Soviet 'Way of Life' in Cold War Britain, 1961-1979
Verity Clarkson
21. The British Reception of Russian Film, 1960-1990: The Role of Sight and Sound
Julian Graffy
Anthony Cross
2. Byron, Don Juan and Russia
Peter Cochran
3. William Henry Leeds and Early British Responses to Russian Literature
Anthony Cross
4. Russian Icons through British Eyes, 1830-1930
Richard Marks
5. The Crystal Palace Exhibition and Britain’s Encounter with Russia
Scott Ruby
6. An 'Extraordinary Engagement': A Russian Opera Company in Victorian Britain
Tamsin Alexander
7. Russian Folk Tales for English Readers: Two Personalities and Two Strategies in British Translation of the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
Tatiana Bogrdanova
8. 'Wilful Melancholy' or 'A Vigorous and Manly Optimism'?: Rosa Newmarch and the Struggle against Decadence in the British Reception of Russian Music, 1897-1917
Philip Ross Bullock
9. 'Infantine Smudges of Paint… Infantine Rudeness of Soul': British Reception of Russian Art at the Exhibitions of the Allied Artists’ Association, 1908-1911
Louise Hardiman
10. Crime and Publishing: How Dostoevskii Changed the British Murder
Muireann Maguire
11. Stephen Graham and Russian Spirituality: The Pilgrim in Search of Salvation
Michael Hughes
12. Jane Harrison as an Interpreter of Russian Culture in the 1910s-1920s
Alexandra Smith
13. Aleksei Remizov’s English-language Translators: New Material
Marilyn Schwinn Smith
14. Chekhov and the Buried Life of Katherine Mansfield
Rachel Polonsky
15. 'A Gaul who has chosen impeccable Russian as his medium': Ivan Bunin and the English Myth of Russia in the Early Twentieth Century
Svetlana Klimova
16. Russia and Russian Culture in The Criterion, 1922-1939
Olga Ushakova
17. 'Racy of the Soil': Filipp Maliavin’s London Exhibition of 1935
Nicola Kozicharow
18. Mrs Churchill Goes to Russia: The Wartime Gift-Exchange between Britain and the Soviet Union
Claire Knight
19. Unity in Difference: The Representation of Life in the Soviet Union through Isotype
Emma Minns
20. 'Sputniks and Sideboards': Exhibiting the Soviet 'Way of Life' in Cold War Britain, 1961-1979
Verity Clarkson
21. The British Reception of Russian Film, 1960-1990: The Role of Sight and Sound
Julian Graffy
© 2012 Anthony Cross et al. (contributors retain copyright of their work)
Attribution should include the following information:
Cross, Anthony (ed.). A People Passing Rude: British Responses to Russian Culture. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2012, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0022.
Further details about CC-BY-NC-ND licenses are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Some rights are reserved. This book and digital material are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative 3.0 License. This license allows for copying any part of the work for personal and non-commercial use, providing author attribution is clearly stated (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Attribution should include the following information:
Cross, Anthony (ed.). A People Passing Rude: British Responses to Russian Culture. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2012, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0022.
Further details about CC-BY-NC-ND licenses are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Click here to listen to Anthony Cross's interview on A People Passing Rude, broadcast by The Voice of Russia in June 2013. (N.B. This is an archived webpage -- in order to listen to the recording, click 'download audio file' beneath the embedded media player on the webpage. You can then open the downloaded file using your media player of choice.)