George Hanna (translator)

George Herbert Hanna (1902–1966, Russian: Георгий Вильямович Ханна) was a British Communist and translator.

Life

After emigrating to the Soviet Union in the early 1930s, Hanna worked for the Communist International. He was imprisoned during the 1940s, and after about 10 years in prison was released in 1957 and later rehabilitated.[1] He was a fellow Gulag inmate to Lev Gumilev.[2] He celebrated his release with a party at the Hotel Astoria in Gorky Street, Moscow. Sam Russell, Moscow correspondent of the Daily Worker attended the party.[3] Hanna worked as a translator for the Foreign Languages Publishing House and Radio Moscow. He taught English at Maurice Thorez Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages and worked for the Soviet Information Bureau. He was a member of the Communist Party of Britain and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

He translated a great deal of the works of Lenin, for example, his revisions of What Is to Be Done? were incorporated into the revised translation included in the English edition of Lenin's Complete Works.[4] He also translated the science-fiction novels The Garin Death Ray by Aleksey Tolstoy and Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale by Ivan Efremov.

He was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.[1]

Books

  • Fundamentals of Soviet criminal legislation, the judicial system and criminal court procedure (1960) Moscow: Progress Publishers
  • A Short History of the USSR (1963) Moscow: Progress Publishers

References

  1. ^ a b "Переводчик Джордж Ханна (1902—1966)". alex-dragon.livejournal.com. Retrieved 12 September 2025.
  2. ^ "Новодевичье кладбище. Ханна Георгий Вильямович (Джордж Герберт) (1902-1966)". nd.m-necropol.ru. Retrieved 12 September 2025.
  3. ^ Durham, Michael (1992). "Russians wrong about Briton who 'died in Stalin camp'". The Independent. No. 6 September 1992.
  4. ^ Lih, Lars T. (2006). Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? in Context. leiden: BRILL. ISBN 9789004131200.