Derek Offord – författare

With support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the UK and the Deutsches Historisches Institut Moskau , The French Language in Russia provides the fullest examination and discussion to date of the adoption of the French language.

With support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the UK and the Deutsches Historisches Institut Moskau , The French Language in Russia provides the fullest examination and discussion to date of the adoption of the French language.

This new Seminar Study provides students with a rewarding introduction to nineteenth-century Russia. This period of Russian history is, of course, characterised by the flowering of an enormously rich intellectual and cultural life, the origins of which lie in the intelligentsia¿s opposition to autocratic rule. Here, Professor Offord introduces the reader to the period while focusing particularly on the rise of radicalism.The book opens with two scene-setting chapters: one looking at the political and social structure peculiar to Russia, and the second looking at the cultural and intellectual background. Then, within a chronological framework, the author examines all the great ''events'' in the history of Russian radicalism - from the Decembrist Revolt in 1825, to the ''going to the people'' in 1874, and the assassination of Alexander II in 1881. However, throughout the text sustained attention is given to the intellectual dimension of nineteenth-century Russian history. Professor Offord examines all the major schools of thought and looks in detail at all the great thinkers of the day, including Chaadaev, Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Bakunin and Tolstoy.This new book will provide essential reading for anyone studying nineteenth-century Russia. Lucid, accessible and immensely readable, it is a formidable achievement.

This new Seminar Study provides students with a rewarding introduction to nineteenth-century Russia. This period of Russian history is, of course, characterised by the flowering of an enormously rich intellectual and cultural life, the origins of which lie in the intelligentsia¿s opposition to autocratic rule. Here, Professor Offord introduces the reader to the period while focusing particularly on the rise of radicalism.The book opens with two scene-setting chapters: one looking at the political and social structure peculiar to Russia, and the second looking at the cultural and intellectual background. Then, within a chronological framework, the author examines all the great ''events'' in the history of Russian radicalism - from the Decembrist Revolt in 1825, to the ''going to the people'' in 1874, and the assassination of Alexander II in 1881. However, throughout the text sustained attention is given to the intellectual dimension of nineteenth-century Russian history. Professor Offord examines all the major schools of thought and looks in detail at all the great thinkers of the day, including Chaadaev, Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Bakunin and Tolstoy.This new book will provide essential reading for anyone studying nineteenth-century Russia. Lucid, accessible and immensely readable, it is a formidable achievement.

Journeys to a Graveyard examines the descriptions provided by eight Russian writers of journeys made to western European countries between 1697 and 1880. The descriptions reveal the mentality and preoccupations of the Russian social and intellectual elites during this period. The travellers'' perceptions of western European countries are treated here as an ambivalent response to a civilization with which Russia was belatedly coming into close contact as a result of the imperial ambition of the Russian state and the westernization of the Russian elites. The travellers perceived the most advanced European countries as superior to Russia in terms of material achievement and the maturity and refinement of their cultures, but they also promoted a view of Russia as in other respects superior to the western nations. Heavily influenced from the late eighteenth century by Romanticism and by the rise of nationalism in the west, they tended to depict European civilization as moribund. By this means they managed to define their own emergent nation in a contrastive way as having youth and promising futurity.