Sam Johnson Memorial Lecture 2025
Join author and historian Sergei Nikitin for this year’s Sam Johnson Memorial Lecture, exploring the remarkable story of how British and American Quakers brought hope and humanitarian aid to thousands in Russia during and after the First World War.
In partnership with Manchester Centre for Public Histories and Heritage, Manchester Histories is delighted to host the annual Sam Johnson Memorial Lecture at the Hub, Manchester Central Library, on Thursday 4 December 2025, 6–8pm.
In his important book, Friends and Comrades: How Quakers helped Russians to survive famine and epidemic, Sergei Nikitin documents the relief work done by British and American Quakers in Russia during and after the First World War, during the Famine in the Volga basin area. Providing emergency relief, medical aid, and food, Quakers provided essential care to many thousands of the War refugees and ordinary Russians in 1916-1931. Drawing on a wealth of archival sources, diaries, and memoirs, the book explores the fraught relationship between the Friends and the Russian state officials.
In this lecture, Sergei presents a story never before told in Russia or in the West: how the Religious Society of Friends worked in Russia under the Tsarist government and the Bolsheviks for 15 years in the 20th century. As the British historian Robert Service said: “Sergei has written an exemplary, vivid, and well-researched account of the Quaker relief mission to Russia.”
Sergei Nikitin was born in Gomel, USSR, in 1957. He studied the physics of semiconductors at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute and worked at scientific research institutes in Leningrad and Gatchina. Sergei has been involved in historical research work on the Quakers in Russia since 1996. In 1999, he started his job for an international Quaker organisation Friends House Moscow as a director of the office. From 2003 he had worked as the Head of Amnesty International representative office in Russia for 14 years. In June 2017 Sergei retired and moved with his family to High Peak, Derbyshire, UK. His book “When Quakers Were Saving Russia” (in Russian) was published in Moscow in 2020. It was published in the UK – titled “Friends and Comrades. How Quakers helped Russians to survive famine and epidemics” – in 2022.
Hybrid Event Information
This is a hybrid event. We warmly encourage you to join us in person at Manchester Histories Hub, where you will have the opportunity to meet the author, purchase a copy of the book, and have it signed.
For those unable to attend in person, please book your ticket using the EventBrite page. A link to join will be emailed to registered attendees in the days leading up to the event.
Reserve your free ticket on Eventbrite to join us in person or online.
