A Russian Journey, Part I: First Steps into Language and Literature
How I Fell in Love with Russian at St Andrews
This is the first of three essays that look at the literature I studied while I was studying Russian at the University of St Andrews from 1993–1998; it covers my first and second years. Part 2 will discuss the year I spent in Odessa, Ukraine in 1995–96, and part 3 will cover my junior and senior honours years in 1996–98.
I arrived in St Andrews in October 1993 to start my five-year degree in Russian language and literature (four years + a year abroad). It had been a long and winding road to get there, beginning in the Royal Corps of Signals in June 1998 at the age of 16. I’d left school with the most basic of qualifications, which, thankfully, were enough to get me into the army with a trade. I’d chosen to train as a radio operator because the army would pay for my driving licence. When I joined, the Corps was looking for Russian linguists to train, so all recruits had to take a language aptitude test. It turned out I had that aptitude, except I really had no desire to learn Russian. In the end I was persuaded into it—the army’s good like that—and I embarked on a two-year intensive Russian course alongside all the military and communications training. I graduated from the Army Apprentices’ College in Harrogate in August 1991 with the Commandant’s Prize for best Linguist. They were right: I did have an aptitude for languages!
But wait, the maths don’t work. June 1988 to August 1991—that’s three years. Yep, well spotted. There was just the small issue of a climbing accident in July 1989 while I was on an external leadership exercise in the Lake District. It was bad. I almost lost my leg and ended up in many different civilian and military hospitals and rehab units. I was out of action for over a year and then went back to the college to complete my training in September 1990. I then went back into hospital for remedial surgeries with a medical discharge pending. Why the army had me complete my training when it seems that they knew very well I was going to be discharged is anyone’s guess, but I’m glad they did because I made a lot of friends that year and I’m still in touch with some of them today.
But what was an ex-squaddie trained in Russian military vocab supposed to do at the age of 19?
My Russian teacher in the army was one Dave Wolstencroft. I wrote about him a few years ago because he is one of the most influential people in my life. When we knew my discharge was on the cards, he was incredibly supportive and did all he could to gain me admission into a Russian program in a university. He knew I had the aptitude for it, but the army qualifications just weren’t enough to get me in. In hindsight, they were probably right. My Russian was very good, but only with military vocab, and my level of general education besides the Russian was poor.
Here’s bit of luck though: the high school in my neighbouring town of Ayr was one of the few in Scotland that offered a Higher qualification in Russian. They also allowed ‘adults’ to enrol. So I enrolled and attended for two years between surgeries and while recovering. I studied with yet another amazing Russian teacher, Stewart Hunt, and also did English and History. It was just enough to be accepted into St Andrews. I was in!
First Arts Reading List
MA First Arts, Russian Course A
Lady with the Lapdog / Дама с собачкой, Anton Chekhov (1899)
The Overcoat / Шинель, Nikolai Gogol (1842)
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1866)
Oblomov, Ivan Goncharov (1859)
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (1878)
Asya / Ася, Ivan Turgenev (1858)
The White Guard, Mikhail Bulgakov (1925)
Pushkin Poetry (Russian)
Lermontov Poetry (Russian)
Stories of the 1920s / Рассказы двадцатых годов, Mikhail Zoshchenko
We read in Russian and in translation, mainly poetry and short stories in Russian and longer novels in translation. Titles above in Russian and English were read in Russian. I’ve cobbled these reading lists together from looking back through the essays I wrote and at the exam papers I kept. I didn’t read everything on the list due to a quirk in the system: you couldn’t do an exam question on any works that you’d written a term paper on, and for the remaining ones, you’d choose two out of four possible exam questions. So, from the list above, I skipped The White Guard and Asya—I still haven’t read them though I intend to—, and I don’t remember reading any poetry or indeed attending any poetry lectures. I only know they were on the syllabus because there are exam questions.
So, what did I read?
Chekhov
My first term paper was on Chekhov’s short story, Lady with the Lapdog. We used these fantastic readers with red covers published by Bristol Classical Press. They had a Russian-English glossary at the back and stress marks printed over all the vocabulary to aid reading.
My essay writing left a lot to be desired, but hey—I was a first year! There might have been a computer lab at St Andrews in 1993 but if there was, I wasn’t confident enough to use it. I did have a delightful Smith Corona personal word processor—an electric typewriter—that displayed … was it three lines of text?, but I didn’t yet have the Cyrillic daisy-wheel for it and so my essays in first year were mostly hand-written.
In my tutor’s remarks, it was the first time I was pulled up for not answering the question properly. It wasn’t the last! In fact it got so bad that I would have to write out the essay question and pin it up in front of me to refer to after each paragraph.
And 57 was still a reasonable mark: 60–69 was an upper-second mark and 70 and above was a first.
Anna Karenina
This is one of those essay questions that has stuck in my brain these past thirty years: Don’t steal rolls!—Levin to Oblonsky. Is this the real message of Anna Karenina?
I still have the copy of the novel I read then. It was an old edition of the Constance Garnett translation I’d bought used, published by Heinemann in 1911. It smells amazing!
It’s interesting to note that at no point in my five years at uni were we ever given any guidance on the difference in translations that were available. I find that a bit odd.
Anyway, I remember reading the novel in my little room in my halls of residence (Gannochy House) and finding it quite a slog. I’m actually half-way through a reread right now and am absolutely loving it, but back then I just didn’t fully appreciate the beauty of what I was reading.
I used my Smith Corona for this essay; I’d read it in translation, so there were no Russian quotations to include.
True to form, I got pulled up for not addressing the question properly.
I scored 58 marks though. I’m improving!
Crime and Punishment
I vaguely remember reading Crime and Punishment at uni. I certainly didn’t expect it to become one of my favourite novels in my 50s. I don’t recall what translation I read and I no longer have the copy of the book I had then. It’s now one of my all-time top 10 novels and I think I have nine different copies, including a Russian edition I bought when I was in Odessa. I ran a slow-read on my channel in 2024 because I wanted to read Roger Cockrell’s translation, and I read McDuff’s translation at the tail end of 2023. But back then it didn’t leave much of an impression on me I’m afraid. I didn’t write a term paper on it as far as I remember, so I probably answered an exam question on it. We didn’t get our exam papers back, so I can’t really say with any certainty what questions I answered. It’s a shame we didn’t get the papers back actually. That could have been quite instructive.
Oblomov
Ah, my beloved Oblomov. This was a stand-out surprise, the first piece of literature we read that I actually enjoyed and identified with—and still do. In fact I just read it for the third time for a slow-read on my channel. My love of the novel showed in my essay, whose title was What is Oblomovism and can it be cured? I wrote a decent essay and scored 74 marks!
Stylishly written! I’ll take it! Thank you, Dr Keys!
Gogol
I vaguely recall reading Gogol’s The Overcoat, another of those Bristol Press readers. Gogol’s an author I’d like to revisit at some point. We went on to read The Government Inspector in second year and Dead Souls in my junior honours year. I also did a whole class on Gogol in my honours years, looking at more works and writing an essay and presenting a seminar. I’d actually forgotten all about that until I was researching this essay. It’s funny, because my wife also studied Russian at uni as a third subject and she did not like Gogol at all!
Exam paper
I don’t remember what questions I answered, but I must’ve struggled. Did I discuss the use of alogism as a humorous device in The Overcoat? I doubt it, as I’d need to have known what alogism meant. Crime and Punishment’s almost a certainty. Why did I put a star next to the Oblomov question? Am I misremembering the term-paper/exam-paper rule? And why, in a world where The Master and Margarita exists, were we given The White Guard as a set text? I did eventually read the The Master and Margarita, but in my own time and not for uni. I plan to read The White Guard this year, having just got Roger Cockrell’s translation. I still have the Michael Glenny translation that I skipped reading at uni. And Turgenev’s Asya? I don’t think I read it. There are no annotations in my copy, so it’s highly unlikely that I did. I would like to though, and those Bristol Press readers are a such a clever way of presenting literature to students in the original language. It would actually be a crime were I not to read them again now. Some of Zoshchenko’s short stories are heavily annotated, so I probably answered the Zoshchenko question in the exam.
I don’t remember reading any poetry at all, so I can’t have answered the poetry question. Whatever I answered though, I must’ve done okay as I passed the year and progressed to second year. Yay!
Additional Courses
I also studied beginner’s Arabic and Information Processing in first year, so I did finally learn how to use a Macintosh computer. I wrote a term paper on AI for my IP class—imagine that, in 1993! Arabic was fun and I carried on with that into second year.
Second Arts Reading List
RU2003: Intermediate Russian Language & Literature I
The Sebastopol Sketches, Leo Tolstoy (1855)
The Cherry Orchard / Вишнёвый сад, Anton Chekhov (1903)
The Queen of Spades / Пиковая дама, Alexander Pushkin (1834)
The Government Inspector / Ревизор, Nikolai Gogol (1836)
RU2004: Intermediate Russian Language & Literature II
Anna Akhmatova Poetry (1889–1966)
Hero of our Time / Герой нашего времени, Mikhail Lermontov (1839)
Valery Briusov Poetry (1873–1924)
The Cave / Пещера, Yevgeny Zamyatin (1921)
The Sebastopol Sketches
I wrote a term-paper on this and vaguely recall that I quite enjoyed the book. I still have the copy on my shelf and I read it again in 2014. It’s an interesting story of the Crimean War, which Tolstoy participated in, made up of three disparate accounts, almost in the style of war journalism.
Did I agree that the three accounts lacked unity and integrity? Yes, I did. I scored 12—it seems that the faculty had changed their marking scheme between first and second year. 12 was equal to the old 60, so I was doing okay! I was still losing points for not sticking to the question though.
Anna Akhmatova
My enduring memory of studying Akhmatova is of writing an essay on a Saturday afternoon in the reading room at Albany Park. I had a room there for second year, sharing with a bunch of pals from first-year halls.
I struggled with poetry, but I’ve since come back to Anna Akhmatova on the back of having read a historical fiction novel called The Revolution of Marina M by Janet Fitch about a young poet in St Petersburg who idolizes Akhmatova and meets her at the Stray Dog Cafe just after the October Revolution. Orlando Figes also writes about Akhmatova in his wonderful cultural history book, Natasha’s Dance. In 1994, I struggled with it, although perhaps not as much as I remember, as I got 63 marks and a single-word comment from my tutor: Good. (What happened to the change in the marking system though? Seems like there was resistance on Dr Keys’ part!
I recently bought this two-volume set and have plans to read them out for my BookTube channel as a means of getting into Akhmatova’s poetry more deeply.
The playlist of videos is here.
A Hero of Our Time
I don’t remember much about this and would like to return to it. I wrote a term-paper on it in March 1995.
It looks like I’m getting the hang of using the computer lab! Dr Keys’ annotations are notoriously difficult to decipher. I think he said, ‘Better not to be too “downright” in your introductions.’ I can guess what he means, but it’s an odd word choice.
I remember that the main character was considered an anti-hero or a ‘superfluous man’ and not much else. Still, I did okay, scoring 60 marks.
The Government Inspector / Ревизор
Another Bristol Classical reader and a longer story than The Overcoat. I have no recollection of reading this at all, other than a vague sense of having enjoyed all the Gogol I read. I wrote a term paper in January 1995, answering the following question:
Another typed essay with hand-written Russian quotations. I did okay, scoring 14/20, but I was still getting a hard time for not answering the question.
Would I ever get the hang of answering the question?
The Rest
I don’t remember reading Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, and only have it in translation. It’s not annotated, but Uncle Vanya is. I must’ve read that then, but I don’t remember when. I have a vague recollection of watching an adaptation with some of my class in my flat in my junior honours year, so it must’ve been from then.
I don’t remember reading any Briusov poetry, nor do I have any on the shelf. I must’ve skipped this.
Exams
January 1995
So I DID read The Queen of Spades by Pushkin—another example of a story that I have completely forgotten. I have it in translation in a Penguin Classics collection, so it’s a book I will be returning to. The other stories are The Captain’s Daughter, Dubrovsky and The Negro of Peter the Great. I’m looking forward to reading it!
May 1995
It looks like I answered the question on Zamiatin’s The Cave / Пещера. I don’t remember it, nor can I find my copy of it. It’s easy enough to find online. The only other Zamiatin literature I have is We, which I read this year in translation.
Additional Courses
I also studied intermediate Arabic and first-year Social Anthropology.
End of Part 1
This post is already getting pretty long, so I’ll cut it here and follow up with two more instalments, one discussing my year abroad in Odessa, Ukraine, a year that was the most difficult year I’ve experienced and the most culturally life-changing, and then another post that looks at the literature I studied in my honours years.
It’s been absolutely fascinating to look back and collate these lists, particularly as I’m now revisiting so many of these works of literature in my 50s. I gave up my job as a translator in 2008 when I moved to Scotland and, I’m sorry to say, my Russian language has deteriorated rather a lot. I intend to get it back again, not only through reading classic literature but also through other media. It’s so easy now almost to immerse oneself in another language with the technology we have—a bit different from bashing out military vocab in the 80s!
I’m very glad that I kept my literature all these years; there’s nothing quite like pulling a book off the shelf and finding a sheet of notes inside that I wrote in my 20s. Having said that, reading some of my essays back has been rather cringeworthy!
You have a fascinating personal story!
Just fascinating! Looking forward to the next 2.