Good to hear Alastair Wilson's report of Kipling in the news. Here's
another example found by my husband Peter.
The Economist of 21 July 2001 includes a section called 'A survey
of Russia'. On page 17, their reporter writes: 'In a teacher training
college in remote Syktyvkar, the unannounced arrival of a British
journalist in an English class provokes a lively and well-informed
discussion of Rudyard Kipling's novels.' From an earlier article, it
appears that the reporter was directed to Syktyvkar because there is a
flourishing forestry business there. Never having heard of the place, we
looked for it in the Times Atlas and an old Soviet-era Atlas SSSR in
Peter's library. Very roughly speaking, we located it thus. Draw a line
south-east from the Arctic port of Archangel and it will meet the Urals
around Sverdlovsk, or Ekaterinburg, where the Tsar and his family were
killed. Draw another line north-east from Moscow, and the two lines will
intersect about halfway. There or thereabouts is Syktyvkar.
In Kipling's house, there are many mansions. From old numbers of
the Kipling Journal, it seems that the Mowgli stories were approved of by
Stalin's regime; under Brezhnev, some of the Puck series were translated,
while Russian versions of Kipling's poems (especially the Barrack Room
Ballads) had a wide following. Peter and I met while serving with the
British Embassy in Moscow in the 1950s. I remember a Russian asking me if
it was true that Kipling wrote prose, as her boyfriend insisted he was a
poet. Not long after the Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan, the Society was
sent a copy of Soviet Literature that quoted translations of both 'Shilling
a Day' and 'Ford o' Kabul River.' Both, from the reports one reads, have
proved prophetic.
It's good to know his memory is still alive out there. May it
help them in difficult times. Lisa Lewis
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