Professor of Russian
Born: August 9, 1924;
Died: May 3, 2018
PROFESSOR Reginald F Christian, who has died of heart disease aged 93, was the first professor of Russian at St Andrews University and one of the world's leading scholars and writers on the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. Always known in the academic world and in his writing simply as R F Christian, he set up St Andrews Russian department in 1966 and remained there until retiring in 1992 as Emeritus Professor.
He wrote several globally-acclaimed books on Russia and Russian literature, including Tolstoy's War and Peace, A Study (1962) and Tolstoy, A Critical Introduction (1969), as well as editing the author's prolific diaries and thousands of letters in two volumes (Faber & Faber 2010/11). A Russophile since his days at Oxford University and during his national service, he spent a lot of time in Russia, including visiting as many libraries as possible as well as Tolstoy's old estate of Yasnaya Polyana, south of Moscow.
Reginald Frank Christian was born in Liverpool on August 9, 1924, son of Herbert and Jessie (Scott) Christian and grandson of Scots. Herbert had been a purser on the ferries between Liverpool and Douglas on the Isle of Man, while Jessie was a professional pianist. Reg, as he became known to friends, attended Liverpool Institute High School, where he won a scholarship in classics at Queen's College, Oxford. Called up for national service when he turned 18 during the war, he had to interrupt his studies to join the RAF, where he served from 1942 until the end of the conflict.
He had hoped to become a bomber pilot but was instead assigned as a badly-needed navigator and was posted as pilot officer (navigator) to the Atlantic Ferry Unit, 231 Squadron, based in Montreal. He helped deliver North American-built warplanes, including Liberators and Dakotas, to the European and North African war theatres, including potential air war theatres such as Scotland, where he delivered many aircraft to Prestwick. RAF comrades recalled that he was the only one among them who never smoked, drank alcohol or swore.
While he was in the RAF, his father sent him a Christmas present in 1943 which changed his life. It was an English transation of Tolstoy's War and Peace and a biography of the Russian author. Reg was hooked. He immediately felt an affinity with Tolstoy.
Returning to Queen's College to resume his studies after the war, he switched from classics to Russian and swiftly learned the language. He saw the way the Cold War winds were blowing; Latin was dead, Russian was vital to geopolitics.
After graduating from Oxford with first class honours in 1949, his Russian skills did not go unnoticed by the British Foreign Office, which had "scouts" in the UK's major universities looking for potential diplomats or even "spooks." He was head-hunted by the Foreign Office and posted as an attaché at the British embassy in Moscow. His duties were essentially to translate the Russian media, already state-controlled, to his seniors but given the outbreak of the Cold War, it was a crucial job, guiding his ambassador, and therefore the Foreign Office, as to what the Soviets were thinking.
He used most of his free time in Moscow attending the Bolshoi ballet and other theatrical events and, as a natural adventurer, liked to travel as far as he could until stopped by Soviet soldiers. Friends said his diplomatic pass once got him away with an incident that would have put Russians into a Gulag: apparently, he came across a poster saying "Vote for Stalin!" but added, in graffiti, an explicit negative, according to his friends. During his later travels across Russia, he said he once shared a train sleeper carriage with Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.
His friends say he once, in 1979, tried to carry a Soviet-banned book out of Moscow inside his trousers but, during a customs check at Moscow airport, it slipped down his trouser leg and ended up on the floor. Gulag for some, but his past history as a diplomat got him off the hook.
After only a year at the embassy in Moscow, feeling his input was not being taken seriously enough, he decided his expertise on Russia and the Soviet union might be better served in academia. He returned to England in 1950 as a Soviet expert, assistant lecturer and eventually head of department at the University of Liverpool, where he met and married the love of his life, Rosalind Iris Napier, a Cambridge graduate of part-Scots origin who had become a social worker in Liverpool.
In 1955, Mr Christian was asked to inaugurate a Russian department at the University of Birmingham and had a spell in the early 1960s as Visiting Professor at McGill University in Montreal. His increasing recognition as an expert on the Soviet Union led to an invitation to set up a Russian department at St Andrews, where he would spend the latter half of his life. After inaugurating the department, he built it into one of the most respected in the world.
Professor Christian went on to teach and mentor many of the world's greatest experts on Russia today - Scots, English and others from around the world. Many of them play key roles, some in government, some in non-governmental organisations, some in charities and others in roles which will always remain less public. His pupils described him as kind, understanding, humble, generous and always humorous. In fact, his life often echoed that of Tolstoy himself, sure of his own mind but humbled by, influenced by and often reliant on what he learned from others, including strangers.
Professor Christian and his wife spent their retirement between St Andrews and a holiday home on the banks of the river Tummel in Pitlochry, Perthshire. As a younger man, he had loved to play football, including for Queen's College, and also played tennis and squash. In later life, he kept fit by walking. Colleagues at St Andrews recalled him holding departmental meetings not in the university but during brisk walks along the West Sands beach. With a love of music instilled by his mother, he became a violinist and often performed with the St Andrews University Orchestra.
Reginald Christian died in St Andrews. He is survived by his wife of 66 years, Rosalind, their son Giles, a former administrator at St Andrews, daughter Jessica, an art historian who studied at both St Andrews and the University of Edinburgh, and a grandson.
PHIL DAVISON
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