Tower and Town, April 2023

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Marlborough's Russian Connections

Whilst leafing through Thomas Hinde's Paths of Progress, a History of Marlborough College, I came across a photo of the 'Brasser', the College's wind orchestra, with its long-serving Head of Wind, Robert Peel, as conductor, in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, in 1980, when they gave the first Western world premiere of Khachaturian's The Battle of Stalingrad. Khachaturian had composed the music for a 1949 Soviet war film on the epic battle which portrayed Stalin as a military genius. The photo attracted my curiosity because my mother is from Stalingrad, which is now called Volgograd. As my contribution to this scholars' project on Marlborough, I have put together some anecdotes about connections which Marlburians, and people associated with Marlborough, have had with Russia.

Blore's Crimean Palace

The iconic photo of Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt seated at Yalta in Crimea is where the victors of the Second World War met to decide the fate of post-war Europe. Stalin went out of his way to impress the British and American leaders, so Roosevelt was housed at the Tsarist palace in Livadia whilst Churchill was made to feel at home in the grand Vorontsov Palace in Alupka, the work of Victorian architect Edward Blore who also designed the main facade of Buckingham Palace and various buildings at Marlborough College including Morris House, B1 House and the Master's Lodge, as well as the original chapel and dining hall (both subsequently demolished and rebuilt for lack of size). Prince Mikhail Vorontsov (sometimes spelled Woronzow), who chose Blore to design his palace, mixing various Oriental and British architectural styles, was an Anglophile having spent his childhood and youth in Britain where his father Count Semyon had served as Russian ambassador from 1784 to 1800 and from 1801 to 1806. Semyon's daughter Ekaterina had married George Herbert, the 11th Earl of Pembroke, in 1808, becoming chatelaine of Wilton House in Wiltshire (her son Sidney Herbert was Secretary of War during the Crimean War. Her Russian sleigh is displayed today in the cloisters). Blore would have been known to Mikhail as he had done work for his sister Ekaterina, the Countess of Pembroke, at Wilton and also for Sir Walter Scott, a friend of the Russian Prince.

In April 1919, children of the Russian aristocracy with their English nannies assembled around the white stone lions which grace the terrace of the Vorontsov Palace as they waited for a Royal Navy warship to rescue them from Crimea and bring them to safety in England. (Churchill, who greatly admired the lions, asked Stalin if he could take them home to Britain, to which Stalin said no. The Soviet dictator could have been more generous, given that he was granted half of Europe at Yalta, but he did send Churchill 400 bottles of Armenian brandy.)

Russian studies at Marlborough

Thomas Hinde writes that 'acquiring teachers of exotic languages has not been easy and some have been sent abroad to study them,' so in 1937, George Turner, the ninth Master, sent one of his beaks, Leslie Coggin, to Russia. Coggin was Housemaster of A House (now Morris House) between 1938 and 1941. His wife Mary also taught at the College. Going to Russia in the middle of Stalin's Great Purge (or Great Terror as it is also known) would not have been an easy assignment. Nevertheless, the College's Russian Department was born that same year. In 1987, Marlborough celebrated 50 years of Russian teaching with a Russia Day.

In the early 1960s, Oxford-educated Russianist, John C Q Roberts, was appointed head of the Russian Department at Marlborough College, spending over a decade teaching at the school. He left Marlborough in 1973 to take over as Director of the Great Britain-USSR Association, a British government funded organisation designed to promote cultural contacts between the UK and USSR, and remained in this position for 20 years retiring from the body in 1993 (the Great Britain-USSR Association having been renamed the Britain-Russia Centre in 1992).

In 2000, Roberts published a book called Speak Clearly into the Chandelier with a foreword by John le Carre. The book deals with cultural politics between Britain and Russia 1973-2000, and has a number of references to the author's Marlborough days, describing how in the mid-1960s Roberts accompanied groups of Marlburian O level and A level Russian language candidates on two trips to Russia, where on one occasion the boys were taken to meet Lord Brimelow at the British Embassy in Moscow. The Independent's obituary of Brimelow claims that he was the best Russian-speaker in the Embassy in Moscow during the Second World War and recounts how the young diplomat was sent to cope face to face with Stalin, who after drinking his vodka, was in the habit of summoning the Embassy late at night to convey his views to Churchill. Marlborough has a long tradition of organising foreign trips and exchanges for language students. For instance, in 1987 there was a joint visit to Russia with St Paul's of 35 pupils. In 1990, exchanges began with School No 57 in Kiev which was still a largely Russian-speaking city at that time.

In his foreword, John Le Carre writes that he invited Roberts to accompany him to Moscow in May 1987 and be his guide there, since he was researching material for his book the Russia House. Le Carre pays tribute to Roberts' considerable knowledge of Russia and concludes that "he wasn't a spy, though I suspect it took the Russians a long time to believe this, as it did me."

In 1976, Roberts organised an evening of recital for the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko at the Royal Festival Hall, and wrote to John Betjeman inviting him to be the guest of honour, 'mentioning his old connections with his old school.' Betjeman replied with a nice letter dated 29 July 1976, which is published in full in the book. The last paragraph reads; Dear Mr. Roberts,......... My goodness Marlborough is a more cheerful place now those glorious girls like your daughter have entered it. I feel I wouldn't mind going there myself. Give your daughter my love and tell her how sorry I am she had to be kept all those hours in the Chapel. I hope the Master gave them all a reward for their labours. When I was at Marlborough to get off games was the best reward available. Yours sincerely John B.

Dmitri M (L6)