Articles THE EAGLE
Popski at St John’s The late Dr John Alexander was a Fellow of St John’s for over 30 years, having read for his undergraduate degree at Pembroke College. He conducted extensive archaeological research in Africa and Europe.
Vladimir Peniakoff’s Russian parents emigrated to Belgium in 1894, probably because of increased government persecution of the radically-inclined intelligentsia to which they belonged; they were wealthy and his father a distinguished scientist. Peniakoff was born at Huy, Belgium, in 1897 and given Belgian nationality. He was privately educated in Brussels until 1912, followed by two years as an undergraduate at the Université Libre in Brussels where he was awarded the Diplôme de humanité classique (Latin et Grec) and the Diplôme de candidat ingénieur which would have permitted him, at the age of seventeen, to proceed to a full engineering degree. The German invasion of Belgium in 1914 interrupted his plans and the family emigrated to France except for Peniakoff who was brought to England by his father who had visited here in 1893–94 as part of a research programme; it was Peniakoff’s first visit to England. They came to London and stayed with the Erichsens, an engineering family whom they had met in 1913 and had to stay with them in Brussels. His father’s plans must have been for Peniakoff to continue his education. Through the family connections of the Erichsens with the Rootham family in Cambridge, Peniakoff was introduced to Dr Cyril Bradley Rootham (1894), Fellow and College organist until his death in 1938, described in the College archives as ‘a prominent member in the musical life of the University’. Dr Rootham agreed to sponsor Peniakoff, for this is written on the application for admission which Peniakoff’s father submitted to the College. The application was signed by the Master, Dean and Tutor and shows that Peniakoff was accepted on 19 January 1915 for an unspecified course of study in Physics (which then included electricity) and Mathematics. His birth certificate never arrived, and his mother’s maiden name
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ARTICLES
Members of the College may not be aware that Vladimir Peniakoff, famous during the Second World War under the nickname Popski for both the audacity of his units’ activities far behind enemy lines in North Africa and Italy, and for adding PPA (Popski’s Private Army) to his units’ shoulder badges, was an undergraduate at St John’s from 1915 to 1916. His autobiography Private Army (1950) was republished as late as 2004 and has been translated into nine languages. That 17 month period has been widely used, although not in his autobiography, to describe him as ‘educated at St John’s College, Cambridge’. While his time here marked a turning point in his life, the description does not fully reflect what we know of his experience in Cambridge.