Manya Harari and Isaiah Berlin are two figures of the Russian first wave emigration in Britain who pursued connections with intellectuals in Soviet Russia and played a role in bringing understanding of Russia to Britain. Berlin visited the USSR in 1945 and 1956; Harari in 1955, 1956 and 1961. In this paper I will consider the roles they adopted in their journeys: whom did they represent and what kind of diplomatic or cultural relations activity did they understand to be their objective? I will argue that, in both cases, from their positions as Russian émigré English, their interactions with figures in intellectual and religious circles in Russia were important interventions in cultural relations and made significant contributions and disruptions to the Western understanding of Soviet Russian culture.
