Please join us for a memorable evening exploring personal memories and Anglo-Russian cultural history with Professor Anthony Cross!
This October, Anthony Cross, the distinguished former Professor of Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge and one of CamRuSS’s patrons, celebrates his 90th birthday!
Over his lifetime, Professor Cross has assembled a remarkable collection of Russian books, art, antiques and cultural memorabilia. Before the collection goes to auction at Cheffins in Cambridge in January 2027, he has kindly offered to share the fascinating stories behind seven objects with Anglo-Russian connections.
In his talk, “Anglo-Rossica: Seven Objects from My Collection,” Professor Cross will take us on a journey through Anglo-Russian relations from the eighteenth century to the early twentieth century, revealing some unexpected historical and cultural connections.
When: Tuesday 24 November 2026, 18:30-20:30 (GMT)
Where: Cameron Lecture Theatre, Fitzwilliam College, Storey’s Way, Cambridge CB3 0DG
Language: English
Format: In-person & Online via Zoom
In-person tickets: £12 — Standard (Zoom recording included); £8 — CamRuSS Members
Zoom tickets: £6 – Standard (Zoom recording included), free – CamRuSS Members
The talk will be followed by a wine reception.
About Prof Anthony Cross
After student years at Cambridge and Harvard, Tony began his teaching career at the newly established University of East Anglia in 1964 and remained until 1981, when he became Roberts Professor of Russian at Leeds, before his election four years later to the Cambridge chair. He was the third professor in the Department of Slavonic Studies until his retirement in 2004. (Professor Emma Widdis is only the fifth in the Department’s 75-year history.)
From the very beginning of his career Tony was very involved in the organisational and representative aspects of Russian studies. He served on the editorial board of many journals and the organising committees of national and international conferences and seminars. He was the founder of the Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia in 1967 and editor of its annual Newsletter for nearly twenty years. What he considers to be his final publication was ‘The SGECR: The First Fifty years’, published last November. In the 1970s he was a member of the British Council Interview Committee for postgraduate studentships in the Soviet Union. He was also Chairman of the British Academic Committee for Liaison with Soviet Archives, which performed an important service for British researchers in a very difficult period.
Since his first visit to Moscow and Leningrad as a Cambridge undergraduate in 1959, Tony has visited the Soviet Union and Russia some fifty times, including a year as a post-graduate scholar in Moscow University during the Cuban Crisis. He has a particular affinity with St Petersburg, where he became the first (and only one of two) foreigner to be awarded an Honorary Doctorate by The Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Pushkin House).
Tony was the first Professor of Russian elected to the British Academy in 1989 and has received several prizes for his published work. He has written and edited some twenty-five books, including exhibition catalogues, and has published over four hundred articles, notes and reviews; delivered some 200 invited lectures, consulted and curated exhibitions and historic publications. He has been a Patron of The Cambridge Russian-Speaking Society since 2020.
We warmly invite you to join us for this special occasion!
Images: Anthony Cross in his study in Cambridge; Anthony Cross in his study in Cambridge; Memorabilia from the Crimean War 1853-1856.
More events on our website, https://camruss.com/en/events/
Event venue
Cameron Lecture Theatre, Fitzwilliam College, Storey's Way, Cambridge CB3 0DG, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.