Harold Shukman

Who is Harold Shukman?

Harold Shukman was a British historian, specializing in the history of Russia.

He was born in London to a family of Jewish immigrants escaping from the Russian empire. After college and national service, he took the Russian course at the Joint Services School for Linguists, in Cambridge and Bodmin, Cornwall. Afterwards, he went on to study Russian and Serbo-Croat at Nottingham University, gaining a first-class degree. He wrote his PhD thesis at Oxford University, his topic being the Jewish Labour Bund. Having completed his doctorate in 1960, he took up an academic career at Oxford where he eventually became the director of the Russian centre at St Antony's College. He retired in 1998.

In addition to numerous academic works, he also translated books by Anatoli Rybakov and Dmitri Volkogonov.

He was married twice. His first wife was Ann King-Farlow, also a Russian scholar, and his second wife Barbara Jacobs, an artist. His son Henry Shukman is a well-known travel writer and novelist. Another son David Shukman is a science journalist.