WELCOME
If you are looking for news about that excellent British actor Stephen Graham then I am afraid you are in the wrong place. This site chronicles the career of the British travel writer and novelist Stephen Graham (1884-1975) who is almost forgotten today. That is a shame. Graham had an amazing life. He lived in Russia in the turbulent years before the 1917 Revolution. He served in the trenches in northern France in 1918. In the 1920s he became friends with literary figures ranging from H.G. Wells to Ernest Hemingway. He spent much of the 1930s in Yugoslavia - living and writing in the Julian Alps - although in Belgrade he was widely believed to be a British spy. And then in the Second World War he worked for the BBC, broadcasting to Yugoslavia, both when it was occupied by the Germans and 'liberated' by Stalin's Red Army. The picture to the left was painted by Vernon Hill - best-known today for his sculpture - who recalled many years later than when he drew it Graham still had 'snow-light in your eyes''. Graham is wearing a high-necked Russian blouse in the picture. The picture at the top to the left is Mikhail Nesterov's 'Two Harmonies' (Nesterov was a religious painter who worked within the broad tradition of Russian symbolism - Graham knew the artist and planned to write his biography). The painting at the top and to the right depicts 'Ygdrasil', the great Ash Tree that in Norse mythology connects heaven and hell (for the significance of Ygdrasil in Stephen Graham's life see the page 'Early Years in Russia').
The site is a work of progress and "a labour of love". My biography of Graham should appear next year. If you have any questions please do get in touch. And I would very much like to hear from anyone who might have known Graham or have been influenced by his works (please use the form below). And please do also contact me if you have any material relating to Graham (or indeed if you believe you have copyright claims to any of Graham's work). Do please click below for a brief audio introduction.
The site is a work of progress and "a labour of love". My biography of Graham should appear next year. If you have any questions please do get in touch. And I would very much like to hear from anyone who might have known Graham or have been influenced by his works (please use the form below). And please do also contact me if you have any material relating to Graham (or indeed if you believe you have copyright claims to any of Graham's work). Do please click below for a brief audio introduction.
Who am I?
My name is Michael Hughes. I am Professor of Russian and International History at Lancaster University in the UK. I have for many years been fascinated by Stephen Graham and have recently finished a biography of him: Beyond Holy Russia: The Life and Times of Stephen Graham.
Why am I fascinated by Graham? It's partly because he had an amazing life - explorer, walker, journalist, novelist, broadcaster. But it is even more because he was one of life's natural pilgrims. Even as a young man in London he sensed that the world should consist of something more than the rituals of office life and the daily commute to the office. A naturally religious man, he spent his life travelling the world trying to make sense of it, and he found his God in the beauty of the landscape and the simplicity of ordinary people. The world was for him something mysterious and wonderful. He never claimed to have found the meaning of life, although he spent much of his own life searching for it, and whilst at his worst his books were trite and unconvincing, at their best they hint at things that are all too easily lost in the modern world. I have over the past few years followed in Graham's footsteps around the world - from Russia to North America - trying to deepen my understanding of this elusive man. Too many University professors look down today on the idea that life is anything more than its purely material form. They believe that everything can be explained and deconstructed. It cannot. Graham understood the fundamental mystery of life, and reading his work is to be reminded how limited our perspectives often are, and prompts us to acknowledge that the development of a spiritual life remains of importance in a despiritualised world.
Graham spent the first part of his life looking towards Russia as a place where he hoped to find experiences and ideas that could make his life richer. He spent the second part of his life thinking back to a world that was closed to him after the cataclysm of the 1917 Revolution. The picture to the left is taken from one of the Old Believer villages on the shore of Lake Peipsi, in Estonia, that Graham visited in 1925. From here you can look across to Russia - on a very clear day - and Graham would have been able to glimpse the place that had dominated his imagination ever since his teenage years. For reasons I cannot explain this was one of the sites where I most felt the presence of Graham - yes the picture is of me - even though I have pursued his memory for thousands of miles across the world. Perhaps because I am a child of the Cold War Russia remains for me - as it always did for Graham - a place both tantalising and elusive.
STOP PRESS!
My biography of Stephen Graham has now been published. Beyond Holy Russia: The Life and Times of Stephen Graham is published by Open Book Publishers (Cambridge). Open Book is an innovative publisher that makes peer-reviewed academic work freely available on-line in order to reach a wider range of readers than books published by more conventional legacy publishers. You can read the book for free on the web or, for a small charge, purchase the PDFs. You can also buy more traditional paperback and hardback copies of the book. And – just to be clear – I don’t get any royalties from these sales! Any profits from these sales of my book are used by Open Book to help it publish further works.
Why am I fascinated by Graham? It's partly because he had an amazing life - explorer, walker, journalist, novelist, broadcaster. But it is even more because he was one of life's natural pilgrims. Even as a young man in London he sensed that the world should consist of something more than the rituals of office life and the daily commute to the office. A naturally religious man, he spent his life travelling the world trying to make sense of it, and he found his God in the beauty of the landscape and the simplicity of ordinary people. The world was for him something mysterious and wonderful. He never claimed to have found the meaning of life, although he spent much of his own life searching for it, and whilst at his worst his books were trite and unconvincing, at their best they hint at things that are all too easily lost in the modern world. I have over the past few years followed in Graham's footsteps around the world - from Russia to North America - trying to deepen my understanding of this elusive man. Too many University professors look down today on the idea that life is anything more than its purely material form. They believe that everything can be explained and deconstructed. It cannot. Graham understood the fundamental mystery of life, and reading his work is to be reminded how limited our perspectives often are, and prompts us to acknowledge that the development of a spiritual life remains of importance in a despiritualised world.
Graham spent the first part of his life looking towards Russia as a place where he hoped to find experiences and ideas that could make his life richer. He spent the second part of his life thinking back to a world that was closed to him after the cataclysm of the 1917 Revolution. The picture to the left is taken from one of the Old Believer villages on the shore of Lake Peipsi, in Estonia, that Graham visited in 1925. From here you can look across to Russia - on a very clear day - and Graham would have been able to glimpse the place that had dominated his imagination ever since his teenage years. For reasons I cannot explain this was one of the sites where I most felt the presence of Graham - yes the picture is of me - even though I have pursued his memory for thousands of miles across the world. Perhaps because I am a child of the Cold War Russia remains for me - as it always did for Graham - a place both tantalising and elusive.
STOP PRESS!
My biography of Stephen Graham has now been published. Beyond Holy Russia: The Life and Times of Stephen Graham is published by Open Book Publishers (Cambridge). Open Book is an innovative publisher that makes peer-reviewed academic work freely available on-line in order to reach a wider range of readers than books published by more conventional legacy publishers. You can read the book for free on the web or, for a small charge, purchase the PDFs. You can also buy more traditional paperback and hardback copies of the book. And – just to be clear – I don’t get any royalties from these sales! Any profits from these sales of my book are used by Open Book to help it publish further works.