William Haydn Mervyn Matthews (July 25, 1932 – November 26, 2017) was a British expert on Soviet society, writer, and broadcaster.Mervyn Matthews, expert on Soviet society – obituary
He was born in Swansea and his early years are described in his 2002 memoir Mervyn's Lot. He took a degree in Russian at Manchester University, then moved to St Catherine's College, Oxford, then St Antony's College for work on his Ph.D.
Falling in love with his future wife from the Soviet Union cost him his career. He was accepted as a research fellow at Moscow University, but expelled from the Soviet Union in 1964 for "anti-Soviet propaganda and speculation".Dr Mervyn Matthews Volume 696: debated on Friday 19 June 1964, UK Parliament St Antony's College annulled his research fellowship for political troublemaking, after which he moved to the University of Nottingham. He eventually settled as reader in the University of Surrey's linguistic and regional studies department.THE SOVIET UNION AND EASTERN EUROPE Edited byGEORGE SCHOPFLIN
Books 1972: Class and Society in Soviet Russia 1978: Privilege in the Soviet Union: A Study of Elite Life-Styles Under Communism 1982: Education in the Soviet Union: Policies and Institutions Since Stalin 1986: Poverty in the Soviet Union: The Life-styles of the Underprivileged in Recent Years 1989: Patterns of Deprivation in the Soviet Union Under Brezhnev and Gorbachev 1993: The Passport Society: Controlling Movement In Russia And The USSR 2008: Mother Russia: A thrilling tale of crooks, corpses and Penclawdd cockles (ed.) Soviet government: A selection of official documents on internal policies (ed.)Soviet Sociology, 1964-75: A Bibliography (ed.)Party, State and Citizen in the Soviet Union: A Collection of Documents Trilogy of memoirsMervyn's Russia: A memoir of Russia Mervyn Matthews Mervyn's Lot, "covered his troubled boyhood in war-torn Swansea of the thirties and forties" Mila and Mervusya, "recounts the gripping tale of his extraordinary adventures with the KGB in Khrushchev's Russia during the Cold War" Mervyn's Russia: A memoir of Russia, "his life in Pimlico with a colorful Russian wife Ludmila, following their marriage under the shadow of Lenin's statue in the Moscow Palace of Weddings in 1969; his return visits to the new, post-Soviet Russia and the many unusual Russians he met"
Family
Matthews is the father of Owen Matthews, a British expert on Soviet society. His wife was Lyudmila Bibikova, born in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine. Their relationship across the "Iron Curtain" holds a notable place in Anglo-Soviet relations in the 1960s. It was explored by Owen in Stalin’s Children and by Mervyn in Mila and Mervusya.Virginia Rounding: Stalin's Children, by Owen Matthews, independent.co.uk, 20 June 2008
Bibikova's father, Boris Bibikov, was a Communist Party official and was executed in 1937.
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