Project timeline

Underpinning Research

In September 2018, Claire Whitehead published The Poetics of Early Russian 1860-1917: Deciphering Stories of Detection (Oxford: Legenda) as the culmination of more than a decade’s academic research. Crime fiction enjoys huge popularity amongst readers in Russia today, but relatively little was known about its origins in the second half of the nineteenth century. So, Claire set out to discover more about the roots of the genre in Russia and discovered more than a dozen unknown and unrecognised authors who were writing great works of crime fiction in the late Imperial era. The Poetics of Early Russian Crime Fiction looks at over 40 works of Russian crime fiction from the late Imperial era and focusses on the various ways in which they utilise storytelling devices to construct and then resolve criminal plotlines. See: Poetics of Early Russian Crime Fiction 1860-1917

However, because very few of the works that are discussed in the book have ever been translated into English, Claire began to think about ways in which she could bring some of these works to a wider public readership. During discussions about the design of a cover image for the book, Claire and the author-illustrator, Carol Adlam, came up with the idea of thinking about how various forms of adaptation might open up avenues for greater knowledge of these fascinating, but lost, works of crime fiction. ‘Lost Detectives’ currently has three stages of development.

Stage 1: Spring / Summer 2019

Stage 1 involved the production of 10 pages of proof-of-concept artwork of Carol’s adaptation of Semyon Panov’s Three Courts, or Murder During the Ball from 1872. These pages were displayed in May / June 2019 in the cloisters area of St Salvator’s Chapel for the public to see with a launch event, featuring special guest, Val McDermid, on 22nd May 2019. Carol and Claire discussed the work involved in the adaptation of the Panov novel at a public event held on 23 rd April 2019, kindly sponsored by the University’s Centre for Russian, Soviet, Central and East European Studies (CRSCEES). Carol has since used the proof-of-concept artwork to pitch her graphic novel adaptation of Panov, The Bobrov Affair, to publishers.

Stage 2: Autumn 2019 onwards

‘Lost Detectives’ was kindly awarded follow-on funding by the University of St Andrews Knowledge Exchange and Impact fund in October 2020. Stage 2 involves the adaptation of three further works of nineteenth-century Russian crime fiction. To date, Carol has adapted Nikolai Timofeev’s 1872 collection of stories, Notes of an Investigator, into an audio play entitled Today in 1864, based on BBC Radio 4’s flagship news programme. Carol also worked on a second adaptation of the same Timofeev work as a musical libretto, entitled Spade and Sand. The second Russian work adapted was Aleksandr Shkliarevskii’s 1881 story A Secret Investigation which Carol has transformed into a wonderfully inventive radio play script, entitled Curare after the poison used in the murders. Finally, Carol is in the very early stages of thinking about the best form in which to adapt The Song Has Been Sung, an 1892 novel by the only Russian woman to write crime fiction during this period, Aleksandra Sokolova. You can listen to us discuss our experiences of adaptation in the second stage of the project in Episodes 3 and 4 of our podcast series, and about Carol’s plans to bring these to a wider audience.

Stage 3: Spring 2020 onwards

In early 2020, the St Andrews Knowledge Exchange and Impact fund very kindly agreed to support Carol’s production of a full 100-page graphic novel of The Bobrov Affair. She is currently preparing the artwork with a view to completing it by the end of 2021.