It is with great sadness that we have learned of the death of Dr John Barber, Life Fellow at King’s, on 26 June 2021.
John first became a Fellow at King’s in 1974, having earlier studied at Christ’s College, Cambridge. After a short stint at the University of Birmingham, he returned to King’s in 1980 and was a long-standing Director of Studies (in both History and Social and Political Sciences) as well as holding the roles of Lay Dean, Vice-Provost, and Acting Provost. A keen musician, he was an enthusiastic member of King’s Voices, the College’s mixed choir, for nearly two decades.
As a scholar, John specialised in the history, politics and society of modern Russia. He had a particular interest in the USSR during the Second World War and Leningrad in the Stalin and Khrushchev eras, with authored and edited works including Life and Death in Besieged Leningrad (with Andrei Dzeniskevich) and Soviet Historians in Crisis, 1928-32.
