I speak English and two slavic languages. I dont speak Russian much, but I do understand some things in it.
I was not confused by this essay in English at all. It was not just clear what it meant, it was completely usual way to express the familly name when talking in English about Russians.
When talking about people from another country, it is acceptable to use grammer, specifically plural form, of language to are using.
If someone wrote a review on a book on Python, with the following statement: "as any algol-derived language, Python has array indexes start at 1", this would be false on 2 accounts and a significant tell on one.
Falsity 1: Not all algol-derived languages have arrays start at 1.
Falsity 2: Python has indexes zero-based.
Tell : the person has not programmed in Python enough to have even basic experience such as familiarity with off-by-one errors and array basics. Although entitled to their own opinions, they should not be doing a review on the topic.
(We leave out the complexity of lists / arrays being available in Python, NumPy etc from this discussion).
Such a statement in a programming book review would be quickly called out by the programming community a) because it is false and b) potentially harmful information (for new-comers).
Despite some opinions that literature, literature analysis and criticism are artsy-fartsy hand-wavy activities, there is significant rigor involved in studying literature seriously.This, as I wrote, involves character analysis.
If the guardian reviewer, or whoever made the surname mistake, had done literature studies involving Russian literature, they would be aware of the surname usage specifics.
It is as big a tell as the above programming example. It has nothing to do with being able to speak Russian. As I wrote, it is a common topic of interest to readers of Russian literature in translation.
I have participated in multiple book-clubs and was briefly a TA on a Russian literature class (taught in English). We had a hand-out, updated from the 60s, on the topic, as it almost always got brought up by attentive readers.
Would you happen to have a source? The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed, does not give credence to your statement. The general position in the field of Russian literature studies (non-native speakers) is similar to mine.
Maybe one analogy that would make the error more jarring would be if someone wrote a piece about Anna Karenina and said "The Kareninas moved to ... " when referring to Alexei Karenin and Anna Karenina.
I was not confused by this essay in English at all. It was not just clear what it meant, it was completely usual way to express the familly name when talking in English about Russians.
When talking about people from another country, it is acceptable to use grammer, specifically plural form, of language to are using.