Hands off Ivan

This morning I went along to listen to one of my favourite historians. I'd heard Norman Davies a year or two ago at the festival and enjoyed reading The Isles. Sadly I still had 120 pages to go of his 1,365-page Europe: A History by the time I arrived this morning.

Davies told us an excellent story. In the late 1980's the Polish government at last agreed to the publication of a Polish language version of his history of that country. The manuscript went to the local Communist party cultural authorities and they didn't object to a single word. However, the Soviet embassy also had to give its approval. After a few days Davies was told by the Soviets that certain alterations had to be made. Was it his criticism of Stalin? No. Of Lenin? No. The Gulag? No. The Soviet message was this: "We don't like your saying bad things about Ivan the Terrible."