Vladimir Volkoff
Vladimir Volkoff (7 November 1932 – 14 September 2005) was a Russian writer who lived in France and whose books were written in French. He produced both literary works for adults and spy novels for young readers under the pseudonym Lieutenant X. His works are characterised by themes of the Cold War, intelligence and manipulation, but also by metaphysical and spiritual elements.
Biography
Of Russian descent with Tatar roots on his paternal side,[1] Volkoff was born in Paris, the son of a Russian émigré who earned his living in France washing cars. Vladimir grew up with his family's memories of the lost motherland and loyalty to their new homeland. He was a great grandnephew of the composer Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
After studying at the Sorbonne in Paris and the university of Liège, Volkoff taught English at Amiens from 1955-57. He served as an intelligence officer in the French army during the Algerian War, where he learnt how war is fought as much in the shadows and the embassies as in the open air of the battlefield.
America
After his demobilisation, Volkoff travelled to the United States to teach French and Russian literature. He worked as a translator (1963–65), and a professor of French and Russian from 1966-77. Fascinated by the powerful country teeming with contradictions, he remained there for almost three decades, returning to France in 1992. Among his "American" works are L'Agent triple (1962), Métro pour l'enfer (1963), Les Mousquetaires de la République (1964) and Vers une métrique française (1977).
Throughout the 1970s under his pseudonym Lieutenant X, Volkoff published stories for teenagers in the Langelot series of Hachette's Bibliothèque verte imprint, featuring the adventures of the eponymous hero, a young French secret agent. In these works Volkoff showed his taste for romantic intrigues and plot twists, and his profound understanding of the balance of forces prevailing in the world.
In the later 1970s, with the standoff between East and West a constant reality, Volkoff's writings analyzed the ideological combat between two opposing conceptions of the world and of freedom with a solid geopolitical background.
An avid competitive fencer, Volkoff was a valued member of the Georgia Division of the AFLA and the Atlanta (and later, Macon) fencing community during his time in America. He claimed to have begun learning to fence in a stint in the Foreign Legion. His book "The Traitor," translated from the French by J.F. Bernard and published by Doubleday and Company was written and published during his time in Atlanta (1973); it was published under another pseudonym, Lavr Divomlikoff (a reshuffling of the letters of his name).
Return to Europe
Volkoff's 1979 novel Le retournement (The Turnaround) earned him international acclaim and was translated into a dozen languages. Dedicated to Graham Greene, whom Volkoff greatly admired, the novel's title refers to the intelligence manoeuvre of turning an uncovered enemy agent to one's own side. The book tells a story of espionage in which the American, French and Soviet intelligence services do battle, but also of a spiritual overturning which, unknown to these secret services, almost makes a martyr of the main character.
In 1980 Volkoff published Les humeurs de la mer, a vast contemporary fresco in four volumes: Olduvaï, La leçon d'anatomie (The Anatomy Lesson), Intersection and Les maîtres du temps (Masters of Time). With Le montage ("The Set Up"; winner of the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française, 1982) Volkoff illustrated the methods and networks of tricks and traps of Soviet "disinformation" in Europe; the idea of this novel could have come from Alexandre de Marenches, director of the SDECE, who may have provided the factual basis for its plot.
In 1985, inspired by his American experience, he published Le professeur d'histoire (The History Teacher), in which he portrayed a comic confrontation between a literary man filled with tradition and a young heiress surfing the wave of modernism.
Power, manipulation, battles of influence and disinformation take a central role in many of his books, such as L'Interrogatoire (1988) and Les Hommes du Tsar (1989), a historical novel about Russia from the death of Ivan the Terrible to the advent of the Romanovs.
In the 1990s Volkoff published Le Bouclage (1990), a novel about the insecurity of large cities, and La Trinité du Mal ou réquisitoire pour servir au procès posthume de Lénine, Trotski et Staline (The Trinity of Evil, or an indictment for the posthumous trial of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin) (1991).
The fall of the Berlin Wall opened Volkoff's work to all kinds of disinformation and manipulation campaigns, not just those of communist regimes. Volkoff established a place for the term "désinformation" in the French language with his books La Désinformation Arme de guerre (republished in 2004 by Les éditions L'Age d'Homme), La Crevasse (1996), Petite histoire de la désinformation (A short history of disinformation) (1999), Désinformation flagrant délit (1999), L'Enlèvement (2000) and Manuel du politiquement correct (Handbook of the Politically Correct) (2001).
In the 2000s he returned to his Slavic roots, publishing several texts on Russian history and orthodoxy, and publicly declared his support for Vladimir Putin's policies.
In addition, Volkoff wrote historical biographies such as Vladimir, Le Soleil Rouge (The Red Sun) and Tchaikovsky, and also wrote for the theatre. He was awarded the Grand Prix Jean Giono for his work in 1995 and in the same year was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur.
Family
Vladimir Volkoff died in Bourdeilles, Dordogne, survived by his second wife, Carla Denise Volkoff, and his only child, Tatiana Gfoeller-Volkoff, from his first marriage.
References
- ^ Jacqueline Bruller, Vladimir Volkoff: l'exil est ma patrie. Entretiens., Ed. du Centurion (1982), p. 86
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- 1915 Paul Acker
- 1916 Louis de Blois [fr]
- 1917 Charles Géniaux [fr]
- 1918 Camille Mayran [fr]
- 1919 Pierre Benoit
- 1920 André Corthis
- 1921 Pierre Villetard [fr]
- 1922 Francis Carco
- 1923 Alphonse de Châteaubriant
- 1924 Émile Henriot
- 1925 François Duhourcau
- 1926 François Mauriac
- 1927 Joseph Kessel
- 1928 Jean Balde [fr]
- 1929 André Demaison [fr]
- 1930 Jacques de Lacretelle
- 1931 Henri Pourrat
- 1932 Jacques Chardonne
- 1933 Roger Chauviré
- 1934 Paule Régnier
- 1935 Albert Touchard
- 1936 Georges Bernanos
- 1937 Guy de Pourtalès
- 1938 Jean de La Varende
- 1939 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- 1940 Édouard Peisson [fr]
- 1941 Robert Bourget-Pailleron
- 1942 Jean Blanzat
- 1943 Joseph-Henri Louwyck [fr]
- 1944 Pierre Lagarde [fr]
- 1945 Marc Blancpain [fr]
- 1946 Jean Orieux [fr]
- 1947 Philippe Hériat
- 1948 Yves Gandon [fr]
- 1949 Yvonne Pagniez
- 1950 Joseph Jolinon
- 1951 Bernard Barbey [fr]
- 1952 Henri Castillou [fr]
- 1953 Jean Hougron
- 1954 Pierre Moinot / Paul Mousset [fr]
- 1955 Michel de Saint Pierre [fr]
- 1956 Paul Guth
- 1957 Jacques de Bourbon Busset
- 1958 Henri Queffélec
- 1959 Gabriel d'Aubarède
- 1960 Christian Murciaux [fr]
- 1961 Phạm Văn Ký [fr; vi]
- 1962 Michel Mohrt
- 1963 Robert Margerit
- 1964 Michel Droit
- 1965 Jean Husson [fr]
- 1966 François Nourissier
- 1967 Michel Tournier
- 1968 Albert Cohen
- 1969 Pierre Moustiers
- 1970 Bertrand Poirot-Delpech
- 1971 Jean d'Ormesson
- 1972 Patrick Modiano
- 1973 Michel Déon
- 1974 Kléber Haedens
- 1975
- 1976 Pierre Schoendoerffer
- 1977 Camille Bourniquel
- 1978 Pascal Jardin
- 1979 Henri Coulonges
- 1980 Louis Gardel
- 1981 Jean Raspail
- 1982 Vladimir Volkoff
- 1983 Liliane Guignabodet [fr]
- 1984 Jacques-Francis Rolland [fr]
- 1985 Patrick Besson
- 1986 Pierre-Jean Rémy
- 1987 Frédérique Hébrard
- 1988 François-Olivier Rousseau
- 1989 Geneviève Dormann
- 1990 Paule Constant
- 1991 François Sureau
- 1992 Franz-Olivier Giesbert
- 1993 Philippe Beaussant
- 1994 Frédéric Vitoux
- 1995 Alphonse Boudard
- 1996 Calixthe Beyala
- 1997 Patrick Rambaud
- 1998 Anne Wiazemsky
- 1999 François Taillandier / Amélie Nothomb
- 2000 Pascal Quignard
- 2001 Éric Neuhoff
- 2002 Marie Ferranti
- 2003 Jean-Noël Pancrazi
- 2004 Bernard du Boucheron
- 2005 Henriette Jelinek [fr]
- 2006 Jonathan Littell
- 2007 Vassilis Alexakis
- 2008 Marc Bressant [fr]
- 2009 Pierre Michon
- 2010 Éric Faye [fr]
- 2011 Sorj Chalandon
- 2012 Joël Dicker
- 2013 Christophe Ono-dit-Biot [fr]
- 2014 Adrien Bosc [fr]
- 2015 Hédi Kaddour / Boualem Sansal
- 2016 Adélaïde de Clermont-Tonnerre
- 2017 Daniel Rondeau
- 2018 Camille Pascal
- 2019 Laurent Binet
- 2020 Étienne de Montety
- 2021 François-Henri Désérable
- 2022 Giuliano da Empoli