Dr Robert Henderson
Honorary Research Associate
email: r.henderson@qmul.ac.ukDr Robert Henderson gained an MA in Russian and a Diploma in Slavonic Languages at the University of Glasgow before taking up the post of Russian Curator/Research Assistant at the British Library. Some twenty years later he returned to academic studies at Queen Mary and in 2009 completed his doctoral research into the surveillance of foreign political refugees in late nineteenth century London with a particular focus on the early years in emigration of the Russian revolutionary historian and journalist Vladimir Burtsev.
Before taking up his current post Dr Henderson held the position of Research Fellow at SOAS where he worked on the ‘Diaspora Mobilization and International Security’ project dealing specifically with transnational political cross-fertilization and radical unification in late 19th century London. He has also been actively involved as a ‘historian–mentor’ in the Young History Workshop outreach project working with groups of local secondary school children, studying the history of race relations in the East End.
Research interests:
Currently Dr Henderson is continuing his work on the biography of Vladimir Burtsev and undertaking further research into the Russian revolutionary emigration in London. He has a keen interest in library history and an extensive knowledge of Russian academic libraries and archival repositories and has acted as group leader on the BASEES Russian Archives Postgraduate Study Tour to Moscow.
Publications:
‘“For the Cause of Education.” A History of the Free Russian Library, 1898–1917.’ In Beasley, R. and Bullock, P. (eds.) Russia in Britain, 1880-1940: From Melodrama to Modernism, Oxford: OUP, [forthcoming]
‘“Bloodhounds Abroad.” The London Operations of the Russian Imperial Police,’ (in Russian translation) in Morgunova, O. (ed.) Russkoe prisutstvie v Britanii, vol. 2. Moscow: Sovremennaia ekonomika i pravo, [forthcoming]
‘A.L. Teplov and the Free Russian Library in Whitechapel’, Solanus, vol. 22, (2011)
‘Russkaia biblioteka v Ist-Ende’ in Morgunova, O. (ed.) Russkoe prisutstvie v Britanii, Moscow: Sovremennaia ekonomika i pravo, 2009, pp. 59–68.
‘International Collaboration In The Persecution Of Russian Political Émigrés: The European Pursuit of Vladimir Burtsev’, Revolutionary Russia, London, vol. 22, issue 1, (June 2009)
‘William Plate, An Unknown Acquaintance of Karl Marx at the British Museum: a biographical sketch’, The British Library Journal, London (2005)
‘Watts, Panizzi and Asher: the Development of the Russian Collections, 1837–1869’, The British Library Journal, vol. 23, no. 2 (Autumn 1997), pp. 154–175. (co-authored with Dr Christine Thomas).
‘The Hand Press Book File in RLIN: the Development of a European Unified Database’, Program, vol. 31, no 3 (July 1997), pp. 269–280.
‘The Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL).’ In Kocójowa, M. and Zaliewski, W. (eds.) Libraries in Europe’s post communist countries: their international context, Krakow: PTB, 1996. pp. 75–80.
‘Russian Political Émigrés and the British Museum Library’, Library History, (December, 1991), pp. 59–68.
‘Lenin v biblioteke Britanskogo muzeia’, Voprosy istorii KPSS, no. 4 (1991), pp. 118–126.
‘Lenin and the British Museum Library’, Solanus, New Series, vol. 4 (1990), pp. 3–15.