The Owen Barfield in Russian Club is now ten years old. From the very beginning, we called it a club, although it could be called a “circle” or a “society”, or have no special designation at all, like the Inklings, who are sometimes named an “informal literary group”, though none of them ever thought of it in these terms while it was active. However, our group, brought together by an interest in the works of one single author, Owen Barfield, became a club. The name “club” turned out to be even more appropriate when our meetings moved from their original location in the Russian State University for the Humanities and settled in the comfortable and hospitable small local “Academy Club”.

As I was involved in the process from the very beginning, I have to say a few words about my own part in the birth of the club. It may be also useful to say a little about the conditions of the time when it all started.

The whole body of Owen Barfield’s works can be likened to a large grotto, of the kind which one discovers sometimes in mountain ranges. This is exactly how I saw it when I first talked to a group of students and University colleagues telling them about the legacy of Barfield’s works, his role and his place in English literary criticism, philosophy of language, and 20th-century philosophy as a whole. One enters this collection, so unfamiliar at first, like in old legends a traveller enters a cave, where (as expected in legends) significant finds await him. What you find there is a huge hall, from which passages lead in different directions, and you do not know their length, nor where they will lead, nor what you may meet there on the way. No matter who you are, you can find yourself in a completely unfamiliar space: philologists are far from the concept of the “legal fiction”; Shakespeare scholars may never have heard of Vladimir Soloviev; physicists may be quite interested in the problem of truth and appearances, but get lost in a detailed study of what Coleridge thought; and those who enjoyed The Silver Trumpet and are planning to read something of the same kind may be rather confused if they try to follow the Socratic dialogue of Worlds Apart.

This is what I was saying at my first lecture on O.B., given on 9 November, 2015, on the occasion of the release of Owen Barfield’s first book in Russian. By a strange stroke of luck, this presentation fell on Barfield’s birthday. The small volume included the tale The Silver Trumpet and the lecture “Owen Barfield and the Origin of Language,” which can be called autobiographical. As I was both a translator and a compiler of the book, I presented it to professors, lecturers and students of the Department of Philology and History of the Russian State University for the Humanities. I compared myself to a guide who brings new travellers to the grotto, shines a flashlight around and talks about how interesting these passages are, while admitting having studied them only quite superficially.

Many years before, while doing my own work in the Library of Foreign Literature, one of the largest Moscow libraries, I came accidentally across a book with the tempting title History in English Words. There were two books by the same author in the Library. The other was Poetic Diction, a gift from the British Council to an ally in common fight, in 1944. I ordered both from the vault, received them in 20 minutes, and started with Poetic Diction. The book seemed so fascinatingly interesting that I could not stop reading, although it did not correspond to my work at all, at that time. In my University years, I studied mathematics, although I always loved learning languages. Now, I knew three languages, worked as an interpreter at scientific congresses, but mainly was a reviewer and editor of articles and essays in the sciences and humanities.

I remembered the author’s name, returned the books, and promised myself that I would return to them, someday. However, before I returned to them, 30 years passed. During that time, I participated in the foundation of the first Waldorf Pedagogical Seminar and the first Waldorf schools in Moscow, taught there as a class teacher and language teacher, and stayed a diligent (though rather rebellious) student of anthroposophy. I also became a University lecturer, translated books, lectures, drama schools and festivals, raised my own children and took my students to Europe.  And during that time, never did I hear the name of Barfield mentioned in Russian-speaking anthroposophical, nor in philological, circles. In some articles or reviews, one could read rather general information about the Inklings, where Barfield had his due place among others, but nothing more.

Over the years, many books were published in Russia, including many new translations. The names of C. S. Lewis and Tolkien became well known. Literary critics discussed details of various translations of the Lord of the Rings, enthusiastic followers gathered in numerous circles enacting the life of Middle-Earth. One could buy the Chronicles of Narnia in good translations not only in big bookshops, but even in the small kiosks of some Orthodox churches. Priests recommended them to parents as good reading for children. There appeared several books by Charles Williams. However, the name of Owen Barfield remained unknown to almost anyone.

I came back to the same library, ordered the same copy of Poetic Diction. On the form, I read that for the previous thirty years there had been three times when somebody ordered the book. I was one of them. Of course, by that time, everyone had access to the Internet, fewer researchers and students needed books in libraries. A Ph.D. thesis in Russian, concerning the works by Barfield, had already been written and presented at one of the Russian Universities with a long tradition of research in the humanities. One could bring any book from Europe or the United States. Nevertheless, this did not mean popularity. The number of people interested in the works of O.B. was still very small.

Just at the time when I was finishing the translation of The Silver Trumpet, the Head of the Department of English Philology, Professor Marina Kaul, brought a new edition of History in English Words from the USA. Our common interest was, in fact, the germ of the group. It became clear that in addition to one’s own interest in Barfield’s ideas and revelations, the opportunity to convey these ideas across the language barrier was an interesting, difficult and tempting task for a researcher and for a translator. Besides, we both liked the format of working in a group. That was not a Club yet, but a very small circle. The next step was to try and find people who knew more and could say something about the topic — and not only listen for new information, “stewing in one’s own juice”, as a Russian proverb goes.

An American journalist, Stephen Lapeyrouse, who lived and worked in Moscow at that time, helped us. For several years, Stephen was leading regular open “English Language Evenings”, with lectures and discussions for everyone who worked with the English language in one way or another. He had around him a vast circle of Russian intellectuals, as well as expats with different interests and competences. I asked Stephen if there was anyone in Moscow besides himself who might at least know the name of Owen Barfield. The answer was a firm “No”.

The other question was if he knew anyone who would be interested in common group work. This time the question was tackled with typical American quick reaction: Stephen instantly contacted the author’s grandson Owen A. Barfield, received from him several good photos unknown publicly, and created a group on the then popular Facebook. That was how the first period of the club started. The Facebook group, as well as the group in person in Moscow, got the name “Owen Barfield in Russia”, which was changed very soon to “Owen Barfield in Russian”. We were connected not by geography, but by language. Russian, of course, remains the main language in the club, but sometimes, thanks to the Internet, our friends from Britain, America or Australia join us online, and we never are short of translators.

As I said at the very beginning, the first printed book by Barfield in Russian translation, The Silver Trumpet, along with a story about the author himself, was presented on author’s birthday in 2015. Owen A. Barfield (grandson) gave generous permission from the Owen Barfield Literary Estate for this publication, but he advised me that another Russian translator Evgeni Terekhin had already taken up the tale and begun translating it. This did not lead to jealous rivalry at all. On the contrary, we got to know each other on the Internet and became good friends. A good sign: it looked like Barfield’s time was coming. Moreover, by the time the book was released, it turned out that there was one more translation of the tale, and it had already appeared on the Internet, while none of us knew anything about the translator Vadim Bloom, nor about his work. In the Russian segment of the Internet The Silver Trumpet and Night Operation are in his translations.

The Silver Trumpet turned out to be a magic key, and after the translation was released, it became easy to talk about Barfield’s works even with people with interests very far from tales of fantasy. Our small circle of colleagues quickly grew into a group online, where the number of members reached about 80 people from different countries. Gradually, most of them realized that not everything was as easy to read as a tale, and that participation in collaborative work (especially working with rather difficult texts) requires strong intellectual effort. The circle became smaller, with about 20 people remaining.

Those who remained participated with enthusiasm, invited friends and acquaintances; the club was open and free. The meetings became something in between a friendly tea party and an academic seminar: someone would bring their translation or a written essay, read it aloud, and then there would be a discussion. Some chose a topic that was in tune with their interests, and we read a text from a particular book in “slow reading” mode. Using a metaphor, borrowed from Unancestral Voice, we can say that what we did was like dipping a thread into a liquid containing crystals in solution. The crystals gathered round the thread. We selected ruthlessly, but in the process of selection we read much, we read swiftly, and our minds were alert. What we did not retain we were nevertheless more alive to than we would otherwise have been; what we did retain we digested.

Individual reports in this inner circle became sometimes the basis for presentations at related conferences. A thesis on the works of Owen Barfield, corresponding to the current master’s degree, was presented and defended in the Department of English Philology. Barfield’s place in the circle of Inklings helped us reach a wider circle of specialists, because conferences dedicated to his kindred spirits were held every year.

Some topics of the first years of the club that were of particular interest to the participants:

• The influence of Barfield’s ideas on Tolkien
• The bridge between imagination and understanding
• Night Operation (an attempt of science fiction combined with the Arthurian stream)
• Various musical motifs in The Silver Trumpet
• Language and Law (“Poetic Diction and Legal Fiction”)

More recently, quite timely themes that occupied us for a long time were “Myth” and “Truth and Imagination”.

The club became an interesting social phenomenon — in addition to philologists and professional translators there came literary critics, poets, musicians, engineers, biologists, lawyers, psychologists and even a Talmud specialist with an interest in metaphorical language. We were like travellers in that large grotto: we went into one adjacent passageway or other and returned with finds that at first might not really add up to the overall picture. Nevertheless, a certain general idea about evolution, about language and the Word, to which Owen Barfield came at the very beginning of his path, connected one find to the other. And no wonder, since Owen Barfield said that he always wrote the same thing over and over, in different ways: “I have never really changed my opinions, not, anyway since I published anything, I have held the same old ideas all my life. If you read my first book, History in English Words, written in 1926, you’ll find the evolution of consciousness beavering away there already.”

In the first years of our sessions, History in English Words and Speaker’s Meaning in full translation were studied in our club especially carefully and in detail, which is not surprising, as the first participants were mainly philologists. This philological approach tired the anthroposophists and they were in no hurry to come to the club. The name of Rudolf Steiner was mentioned quite discreetly, just as it appears in Barfield’s first books or in his American lectures. In addition, the anthroposophists in Russia are accustomed to receiving anthroposophical knowledge (even secondary anthroposophical literature) mainly from the German language. The English language, and works connected with this language, have traditionally been something alien, or at least not close, for many Russian followers of Steiner. This may be one of the reasons why old anthroposophical circles accepted our invitations, as well as Barfield’s ideas, slowly and not always willingly. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Fortunately, this is changing gradually.

In 2016, The Silver Trumpet was released anew, this time in Kyiv (Ukraine), where we have many friends. It may be difficult for European readers to imagine it now, but close and friendly interpersonal ties between people, including ties between anthroposophical circles in Russia and Ukraine, have been and remain now quite a normal thing. Our joint project, a book in both languages, which I and the Ukrainian illustrator Natalia presented at a large book fair in Kyiv, was a success. By another strange coincidence, this happened on April 23, Shakespeare’s birthday, which was declared English Language Day that year.

In 2021, with the strong support of the whole Club, a collection of my translations into Russian of some essays, lectures and chapters from several of Barfield’s books was published. This has a reasonably lengthy preface which I contributed. We presented it in the same Library of Foreign Literature, where two of Barfield’s first editions are stored — the seed from which our whole activity has grown.

Now, ten years after the first steps, we are about 12 people. Meetings are usually held once every two months. Returning to the metaphor of a grotto, we can say that we have already significantly expanded the passages into adjacent spaces. Russian prose, poetry and philosophy, various translations from different languages, books in originals, mostly English and German, all this gives us an unlimited opportunity to dig deeper and wider in several directions. We bring our own books and essays written recently, talk about new publishing and research projects, invite our students. The themes are not always connected with Owen Barfield directly, now. But the same motive, the same constancy of his ideas, gives us a reason to return each time to the original grotto. There are many themes — Myth, Imagination, Evolution of Consciousness, Philosophy of Language, Christian motifs — to which we return repeatedly in one way or another with gratitude to the original ideas. Since 2021, when the authentic English “Owen Barfield Discussion Group” appeared on Facebook, some of us also joined it, which makes the perspective wider and the work more interesting.