Charles Neal Ascherson (born 5 October 1932) is a Scottish journalist and writer. He has been described by Radio Prague as "one of Britain's leading experts on central and eastern Europe". [1] Ascherson is the author of several books on the history of Poland and Ukraine. His work has appeared in The Guardian and The New York Review of Books .
Ascherson was born in Edinburgh on 5 October 1932, [2] son of a Naval officer of Jewish ancestry and a mother from a London family of Scottish descent; his elder half-sister (by his father's first marriage) was the artist Pamela Ascherson. [3] He was awarded a scholarship to Eton. [4] Before going to university, he did his National Service as an officer in the Royal Marines, serving from July 1951 [5] to September 1952, [6] and seeing combat in Malaya. [4] He then attended King's College, Cambridge, where he read history. [4] The Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm was his supervisor at Cambridge and described Ascherson as "perhaps the most brilliant student I ever had. I didn't really teach him much, I just let him get on with it." [2]
After graduating Ascherson declined offers to pursue an academic career. [2] Instead, he chose a career in journalism, first at The Manchester Guardian and then at The Scotsman (1959–60; 1975–79), The Observer (1960–75; 1979–90) and The Independent on Sunday (1990–98). [4] He contributed scripts for the documentary series The World at War (1973–74) and the Cold War (1998). He has also been a regular contributor to the London Review of Books . [4]
Ascherson has occasionally been actively involved in politics. In 1976, while working as the Scottish political correspondent for The Scotsman, he joined the newly-founded Scottish Labour Party (SLP), a breakaway faction which was led out of the UK Labour Party by the MP Jim Sillars following disagreements over the party's policy on Scottish devolution. Ascherson, like Sillars an enthusiastic supporter of maximalist 'Home Rule', provided much favourable coverage of the new party, but the SLP was riven by internal dissension and was wound up after the 1979 general election. [7] [8] Twenty years later, in the first election for the Scottish Parliament, he stood as the Liberal Democrat candidate in the West Renfrewshire constituency but was not successful. [9] Ascherson supported the "Yes" (pro-independence) campaign in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. [10]
Ascherson has also lectured and written extensively about Polish and Eastern Europe affairs. [1] [11] As of 2016 [update] he is a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. [12] [4] He has been editor of Public Archaeology , an academic journal associated with UCL devoted to CRM and public archaeology issues and developments, since its inception in 1999. [13]
In 1991 Ascherson was awarded an honorary degree from the Open University as Doctor of the University. [14] In 2011 he was elected Honorary Fellow [15] of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
Neal Ascherson's first wife was journalist Corinna Adam; the couple first met at Cambridge University and married in 1958. They had two daughters together before separating in 1974. The couple divorced in 1982. [16] Corinna Ascherson, also a journalist, died in March 2012. [16] [17]
In 1984, he married his second wife, journalist Isabel Hilton. [2] The couple currently live in London and have two children.
His aunt was the actress Renée Asherson. [18]
Mark James Walter Cameron CBE was a British journalist and writer, in whose memory the annual James Cameron Memorial Lecture is given.
The Scottish Labour Party (SLP) was a socialist party in Scotland that was active between 1976 and 1981. It formed as a breakaway from the UK Labour Party. It won three council seats in 1977 but lost its MPs at the 1979 election and was dissolved two years later.
James Sillars is a Scottish politician and campaigner for Scottish independence. Sillars served as a Labour Party MP for South Ayrshire from 1970 to 1976. He founded and led the pro-Scottish Home Rule Scottish Labour Party in 1976, continuing as MP for South Ayrshire until he lost the seat in 1979.
The 79 Group was a faction within the Scottish National Party (SNP), named after its year of formation, 1979. The group sought to persuade the SNP to take an active left-wing stance, arguing that it would win more support, and were highly critical of the established SNP leaders. Although it had a small membership, the group caused sufficient disquiet that it was expelled from the SNP in 1982, although its members were subsequently readmitted and many attained senior positions in the Scottish Government after 2007. Former First Minister Alex Salmond (2007–2014) was a leading member of the group.
The Scottish Constitutional Convention (SCC) was an association of Scottish political parties, churches and other civic groups, that developed a framework for Scottish devolution. It is credited as having paved the way for the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.
Catherine Maria Fyfe, known as Maria Fyfe, was a Scottish politician and educator who served as Member of Parliament for Glasgow Maryhill from 1987 to 2001. She was Deputy Shadow Minister for Women from 1988 to 1991, Convener of the Scottish Group of Labour MPs from 1991 to 1992 and front bench spokesperson for Scotland from 1992 to 1995. Fyfe campaigned for 50-50 representation of women in the Scottish Parliament.
Chris Bambery is a Scottish political activist, socialist, author, journalist, TV presenter and producer, most recently with the Islam Channel where he hosts their current affairs programme The Report.
Timothy Garton Ash is a British historian, author and commentator. He is Professor of European Studies at Oxford University. Most of his work has been concerned with the contemporary history of Europe, with a special focus on Central and Eastern Europe.
Isabel Nancy Hilton OBE is a Scottish journalist and broadcaster, based in London.
Colin Boyd, Baron Boyd of Duncansby, is a Scottish judge who has been a Senator of the College of Justice since June 2012. He was Lord Advocate for Scotland from 24 February 2000 until his resignation on 4 October 2006. On 11 April 2006, Downing Street announced that Colin Boyd would take a seat as a crossbench life peer; however, he took the Labour whip after resigning as Lord Advocate. He was formally introduced in the House of Lords on 3 July 2006. On the day SNP leader Alex Salmond was elected First Minister of Scotland, it was reported that Boyd was quitting the Scottish Bar to become a part-time consultant with public law solicitors, Dundas & Wilson. He told the Glasgow Herald, "This is a first. I don't think a Lord Advocate has ever done this—left the Bar and become a solicitor."
Eric Robert Russell Linklater CBE was a Welsh-born Scottish poet, fiction writer, military historian, and travel writer. For The Wind on the Moon, a children's fantasy novel, he won the 1944 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association for the year's best children's book by a British subject.
Magnus Duncan Linklater, CBE is a Scottish journalist, writer, and former newspaper editor.
Dorothy Renée Ascherson, known professionally as Renée Asherson, was an English actress. Much of her theatrical career was spent in Shakespearean plays, appearing at such venues as the Old Vic, the Liverpool Playhouse, and the Westminster Theatre. Her first stage appearance was on 17 October 1935, aged 20, and her first major film appearance was in The Way Ahead (1944). Her last film appearance was in The Others (2001).
CEDADE was a Spanish neo-Nazi group that concerned itself with co-ordinating international activity and publishing.
The Bolivian Socialist Falange is a Bolivian political party established in 1937. It is a far-right party drawing inspiration from fascism. It was the country's second-largest party between approximately 1954 and 1974. After that, its followers have tended to gravitate toward the government-endorsed military candidacy of General Juan Pereda (1978) and, especially, toward the ADN party of former dictator Hugo Banzer.
Sir Alastair MacTavish Dunnett was a Scottish journalist and newspaper editor. He edited The Daily Record newspaper for nine years and The Scotsman newspaper from 1956 to 1972. In 1975 he became chairman of Thomson Scottish Petroleum and was much involved in the establishment of the oil terminal at Flotta in Orkney. From the 1950s to the 1980s he was involved in many Scottish cultural activities including being governor of the Pitlochry Festival Theatre (1958–1984). He was awarded an honorary degree of LLD by the University of Strathclyde in 1978 and was knighted on 4 July 1995.
George Kerevan is a Scottish journalist, economist, and politician. He was the Scottish National Party (SNP) Member of Parliament (MP) for East Lothian from 2015, until he lost his seat at the snap 2017 general election.
RISE – Scotland's Left Alliance was a left-wing electoral alliance and political party created ahead of the 2016 Scottish Parliament general election. The name was a contrived acronym standing for Respect, Independence, Socialism and Environmentalism. The Party name was registered as 'RISE - Respect, Independence, Socialism and Environmentalism'. The party was deregistered in November 2020.
Gabriel Bagradian is the protagonist of the 1933 novel The Forty Days of Musa Dagh by Franz Werfel and the 1982 film adaptation, where he was portrayed by Kabir Bedi. Gabriel, along with the rest of the Bagradian family, is a wholly fictional character; no piece of historical evidence ever proved their existence. Oliver Kohns, author of "The Aesthetics of Human Rights in Franz Werfel's The Forty Days of Musa Dagh," stated that therefore the Bagradians were "The most significant deviation from the historical record" in the work.
Pierluigi Concutelli, known as The Commander, was an Italian neofascist, terrorist, and bank robber. He styled himself as an "urban guerrilla fighter". He was a member of the far-right organization Ordine Nuovo, and later became the leader of its underground armed unit, Gruppi di Azione Ordinovista.
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