Art historian, professor, writer, spy - the extraordinary story of Anthony Blunt

In November 1979, Margaret Thatcher exposed the distinguished art historian Anthony Blunt as a former Soviet spy - part of the infamous Cambridge Spy Ring who traded secrets with Moscow during the Second World War. Blunt’s unmasking provoked a media outcry that turned him into a national hate figure. In this 10-Minute Talk, President of the British Academy David Cannadine discusses the background to this extraordinary story. And he reveals how the British Academy itself got caught up in the public furore, leading to a showdown at its Annual General Meeting forty years ago this month, on the question of whether Blunt should be expelled from its membership.
'A Question of Retribution? The British Academy and the Matter of Anthony Blunt', edited by David Cannadine: global.oup.com...
Speaker: Professor Sir David Cannadine PBA, President, British Academy; Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University
The world’s leading professors explain the latest thinking in the humanities and social sciences in just 10 minutes.
10-Minute Talks are a new series of pre-recorded talks from Fellows of the British Academy screened each Wednesday, 13:00-13:10, on KZbin. Our speakers will be available between 13:10 and 13:30 on the day of their talk to answer questions in the KZbin comments section (questions can be added to the KZbin comments section or sent via email: [e-mail]).
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Image: Anthony Blunt at a press conference, 20th November 1979 © Central Press / Stringer / Hulton Archive / Getty Images

[@TheBritishAcademy]

Thank you very much for all your questions and to David for his time. Our next British Academy 10-Minute Talk will be given by Professor Richard English FBA on Wednesday 29 July, 13:00. Subscribe to our channel to be notified of this and sign up to our newsletter for updates and other interesting things to read, watch and listen: eepurl.com/gaThWL.

[@angelojorgio1170]

Thanks for your talk in 10min

[@juliaevans46]

Thank you! Ten minutes passes by very quickly listening to an interesting talk

[@s.alvanides9954]

What a fascinating story, delivered with such gusto! Thank you :-)

[@andyiswonderful]

I think certain members of the British Academy were grossly understating Blunt's malfeasance by saying that an Academy member should not be punished for their political beliefs. It wasn't his political beliefs that were reprehensible, but his overtly treasonous actions. The man should have been thrown in prison, but was able to wiggle out of that one. And here, some dippy members of the British Academy didn't even want to throw him out of that institution, much less throw him into prison.

[@MrPotsy81]

Seriously, people died because of these spies.

[@glenncalderwood8945]

fascinating to listen to this essay as much for style as content

[@suegilmour889]

Why wasn’t Blunt imprisoned?

[@lynnemurphy114]

What an interesting man Sir A.B

[@peterhall728]

Upper class traitor and his only punishment is to be struck off the Queens Garden party list. Still looks after her etchings mind, priorities eh.

[@emmarussell2692]

Thank you! Fascinating stuff. :-)

[@nickjung7394]

A pity that this misguided traitor, whose actions resulted in deaths, was not forced to disclose all that he knew. I wonder why?

[@ahargrov1]

Who here because of the crown

[@hairsensationbyfiona4098]

Same!!

[@chrisy6707]

That was a really nice talk, thank you.

[@iphigenia19]

excellent, thank you

[@stewartellinson8846]

An excellent reflection on an event which does not show the british establishment in a good light. Not so much for the outcome but for the faux outrage and posturing that it triggered. I hope history is much kinder to Sir Anthony Blunt than the Thatcher government and those who wanted to be in their good books were in the years following 1979. As an aside, it's good to see that the work of David Kynaston occupies a place on the shelves of Prof. Cannadine and I look forward to the next book in the series about postwar Britain.

[@blackmore4]

How should history be "kind" to a traitor?

[@benzflynn]

Sorry but he was not a Sir but a mere Mr since late 1979.

[@andyiswonderful]

Spoken like a devout lefty.

[@benzflynn]

@@andyiswonderful The Queen's advisors are hardly lefties - they are the ones who took away his Sir. And quite rightly too, I think.

[@howard1beale]

Nice comment thank you

[@TheBritishAcademy]

Thank you for tuning into Professor Sir David Cannadine’s 10-Minute Talk. After the talk, David will be available for 20-minutes to type responses to a selection of audience questions in the KZbin comments section. Please reply to this comment with any questions you may have, and he will do his best to answer as many as possible. Many thanks and we hope you enjoy the talk.

[@TheBritishAcademy]

Question via email: Did you know either of the two key protagonists - Blunt and Dover? Answer: Although I knew quite a lot of the other people involved in the Blunt affair, I never met either Blunt or Dover. I do very much regret that as they were clearly both very clever and complex men and I would have valued the opportunity to have a conversation with them.

[@bazejgebura2183]

How is the Blunt case perceived by members of the Academy today? Is it still subject to controversy and dispute?

[@xmoonxprincessx]

What do you think it is that has brought Blunt back into the public imagination and do you think anything could have been done differently in the past?

[@TheBritishAcademy]

@@bazejgebura2183 Question via KZbin: How is the Blunt case perceived by members of the Academy today? Is it still subject to controversy and dispute? Answer: The Blunt affair happened 40 years ago and there are only a few Fellows of the Academy alive today who can remember those events. I suspect that the majority of Fellows don’t know much about it. But of course I hope that they will buy the book and find it worthwhile to read both on account of the story itself and the broader issues it raises.

[@TheBritishAcademy]

@@xmoonxprincessx Question via KZbin: What do you think it is that has brought Blunt back into the public imagination and do you think anything could have been done differently in the past? Answer: Blunt died within a few years of the episode that the book describes, but he has had a long afterlife in fictional recreation especially in Alan Bennett’s brilliant play ‘A Question of Attribution’, to which the title of the Academy’s publication ‘A Question of Retribution?’ plays homage.

[@fionaobrien3818]

Very interesting 🧡♥️💗

[@Spook2431NYC]

What an excellent presentation! New subscriber.

[@peyiots]

A politico-academic version of "A very British scandal". The fissures were probably always there because British society is not, as we may often think, a completed work of art, but a geological formation, and thus both a source of its treasures and its weaknesses.

[@benzflynn]

Reading on video is stupid. As a professional communicator, Sir David should know how to use the power of _ex tempore_ speaking on an audience. Overall I get a feeling that Mr Cannadine is empathetic to Blunt because of his impressive volume of work as an art historian. I think we all appreciate that Blunt was not a drunken cad like Burgess, nor a malcontent like Philby: his weakness was his own weakness in the face of such low characters. About 60 million non-members of the British Academy were given no say whatever in what _should_ be done with people like Blunt. Yet any organization with a national dimension, let alone with a monarch as its patron, really cannot have much alternative than summary expulsion. To her credit Mrs Thatcher appreciated this and had her spake on the matter.

[@angelojorgio1170]

Hi po