William Haydn Mervyn Matthews (July 25, 1932 – November 26, 2017) was a British expert onSoviet society, writer, and broadcaster.^[1]

He was born inSwansea and his early years are described in his 2002 memoirMervyn's Lot. He took a degree in Russian atManchester University, then moved toSt Catherine's College, Oxford, thenSt Antony's College for work on his Ph.D.^[1]

The story of his love with his future wife from theSoviet Union (see "Family") cost him carrier.^[1] He was accepted as a research fellow atMoscow University, but expelled from the Soviet Union in 1964 for "anti-Soviet propaganda and speculation".^[a][3] St Antony's College annulled his research fellowship for political troublemaking, after which he moved toNottingham University.^[1]He eventually settled as reader in theUniversity of Surrey's linguistic and regional studies department.^[1][4]

• 1972: Class and Society in Soviet Russia
• 1978: Privilege in the Soviet Union: A Study of Elite Life-Styles Under Communism
• 1982: Education in the Soviet Union: Policies and Institutions Since Stalin
• 1986: Poverty in the Soviet Union: The Life-styles of the Underprivileged in Recent Years
• 1989: Patterns of Deprivation in the Soviet Union Under Brezhnev and Gorbachev
• 1993: The Passport Society: Controlling Movement In Russia And The USSR
• 2008: Mother Russia: A thrilling tale of crooks, corpses and Penclawdd cockles
• (ed.) Soviet government: A selection of official documents on internal policies
• (ed.)Soviet Sociology, 1964-75: A Bibliography
• (ed.)Party, State and Citizen in the Soviet Union: A Collection of Documents
• Trilogy of memoirs^[5]
  • Mervyn's Lot, "covered his troubled boyhood in war-torn Swansea of the thirties and forties"
  • Mila and Mervusya, "recounts the gripping tale of his extraordinary adventures with the KGB in Khrushchev's Russia during the Cold War"
  • Mervyn's Russia: A memoir of Russia, "his life inPimlico with a colorful Russian wife Ludmila, following their marriage under the shadow of Lenin's statue in the Moscow Palace of Weddings in 1969; his return visits to the new, post-Soviet Russia and the many unusual Russians he met"

He is father ofOwen Matthews, a British expert on Soviet society. His wife was Lyudmila Bibikova, born inKharkiv,Soviet Ukraine. Their love history across the "Iron Curtain" had a notable place in Anglo-Soviet relations in the 1960s. It was told in Owen Matthews bestselling memoirStalin’s Children and by Mervyn Matthews himself inMila and Mervusya.^[1][6][7] Bibikova's father, Boris Bibikov, was a Communist Party official exewcuted in 1937.^[1]