New AcquisitionsRansome in Russia; Ted Alexander & Tatiana Verizhnikova; CA 16293
A new Ransome book has been produced and published by Ted Alexander. It is an excellent volume dealing for the first time in detail with Ransome’s years in Russia. Ransome spent 10 years in Russia and the Baltic from 1914 to 1924. It was a period that changed his life, broadened his literary ability and set the foundation stones for the writing of the Swallows & Amazons series.
Ted has credited Tatiana as co-author, although I suspect most of the writing of the book is down to Ted. When I first heard about the project, when researching Racundra’s Third Cruise, I thought “Oh dear! This is going to be another boring literary treatise”. How wrong could I be? It reads very easily and does not attempt to be a blow-by-blow account of Ransome’s activities. It contains much new material that puts into context the coverage of these years in his Autobiography and Biography and does not repeat but compliments other writings.
The research is impressive and very much a joint effort. The high point of their efforts, for me, was the discovery, and photographing of Evgenia’s office, completely untouched after eighty years, in the Smolny in St. Petersburg. The book is lavishly illustrated with colour and black and white photographs, maps and documents old and new. There are two wonderful pictures of Arthur and Evgenia swimming in Estonia. Obviously the 1920’s one-piece swimming costumes had not arrived in the Baltic at that time!
“Ransome in Russia” starts with a chapter on Ransome’s early years and goes on to comprehensive coverage of Ransome’s time in the USSR (which it became whilst he was there). It tells us about his life as a war correspondent, political writer, sailor and fisherman. It details his life with Evgenia and his involvement with the Bolshevik leaders. It covers, at length, with the aid of new information and Ransome’s notes, his journey across the civil war lines from Reval to Moscow and back in 1919. The main part of the book concludes with Ransome’s time as a correspondent in the Baltic States. The final chapter deals with Evgenia and the October revolution, with fascinating new material including, in her own words, an account of her time with the Bolsheviks, her employment as Trotsky’s secretary and her trip to the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty.
“Ransome in Russia” is a remarkable piece of work, easy to read and full of “Ransomeian” memorabilia in words and pictures. No collector of Ransome material or student of this period of Russian and Baltic history should be without a copy. How nice it is to have a new book that extends our knowledge of the man, his attitude to life, love and work and helps us to understand how his own experiences enabled him to write exciting children’s’ novels so successfully. - BH
Page created 26 February 2004
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