John EricksonFRSE FBA FRSA was a British historian and defence expert who wrote extensively on the Second World War. His two best-known books – The Road to Stalingrad and The Road to Berlin – dealt with the Soviet response to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, covering the period from 1941 to 1945. He was respected for his knowledge of Russia during the Cold War. His Russian language skills and knowledge gained him respect.
Education and early life
John Erickson was born on 17 April 1929 in the town of South Shields, England. He was educated at South Shields High School for Boys and St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated MA Hons. He became a Research Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford from 1956 until 1958, during which he met his future wife Ljubica Petrovic, a young Yugoslavian attending Oxford to read English. At the culmination of their courtship they sought the permission of the Yugoslav cultural attache before their wedding in 1957. Professor Erickson then taught at the universities of St Andrews in 1958, Manchester in 1962 and then Indiana in 1964 before becoming a reader in higher defence studies at Edinburgh in 1967. In 1969 he became Professor of Defence Studies, a position he held until 1988, where he founded and was the head of the Centre for Defence Studies. From 1988 to 1996 he was the Director of the Centre for Defence Studies.
Edinburgh Conversations
The Edinburgh Conversations were a series of meetings that took place between 1983 and 1989 between prominent political & military leaders in Western countries and their Soviet counterparts. The purpose of the meetings were to allow face-to-face dialogue to take place in a neutral setting. The first Soviet delegation included the editor of Pravda and two army generals.
Origin
The UK formally suspended diplomatic contact with the Soviet Union after the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. Erickson sought to maintain a forum of discussion between the West and the Soviet Union. The setting alternated between Edinburgh and Moscow. Although both sides approached the initial meeting with suspicion, the knowledge of Erickson and his insistence upon "academic rules" contributed to their ongoing success.
Impact
In recognition of Erickson’s achievement, Sir Michael Eliot Howard declared that ‘Nobody deserves more credit for the ultimate dissolution of the misunderstandings that brought the Cold War to an end and enabled the peoples of Russia and their western neighbours to live in peace.’
Publications
The Soviet High Command 1918-1941: A Military-Political History 1918-1941, St Martin's Press, London, 1962
