A Nest of Slavists at Nottingham in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

The University College, Nottingham, received its Royal Charter in 1948, thus becoming The University of Nottingham, and awarding its own degrees. There had been a lecturer in Russian since 1915 and a Department of Slavonic Languages since 1932, but until 1947, when Monica Partridge was appointed as tutorial assistant, it had only one permanent member of staff. Only one first degree is recorded before 1951,1 when there were five, and it was only during the early post-war years that it began to take on the contours of a modern university department with specialists in different fields, firstly under the headship of John Fennell (1952–57) and then of F. F. Seeley (1957–67).2 However, it would be a mistake to imagine that The University College made no significant contribution to the advance and promotion of Slavonic Studies during the interwar period and the years that immediately followed. Four names stand out. The first, and foremost, is undoubtedly that of Janko Lavrin, who assumed the post of lecturer in Russian in 1918 to be appointed Professor of Russian in 1921 and retire in 1952. I have written of his contribution to Slavonic and comparative studies at greater length elsewhere.3 Although his significance has in this century been generously