Michael Glenny

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michael Valentine Glenny (26 September 1927 London - 1 August 1990 Moscow) was a British lecturer in Russian studies and a noted translator of Russian literature into English. Earlier in his career he also translated some works from German.

During his ten years in the British army (which included a spell as an intelligence officer in West Berlin), Glenny took an MA in Modern Languages followed by postgraduate study in Soviet studies at Oxford University. He left the army in 1954 to go into business. As a salesman for the Wedgwood company he first visited the Soviet Union. In 1964 he joined The Observer newspaper in London as a reporter, but left three years later.

Glenny was a lecturer in Russian language, literature and history at Birmingham University 1969-1975, Southern Illinois University 1975-1977 and Bristol University 1977-1984. He was the author of several works on Russian literature as well as co-author with Norman Stone of "The Other Russia", an oral history of the experiences of Russian emigres for which he also conducted many of the interviews.

Glenny's numerous translations included works by Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Maxim Gorky, Mikhail Bulgakov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, as well as the first volume of Boris Yeltsin's memoirs.

His son Misha Glenny is a writer and broadcaster on Eastern Europe.