Russka

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am deeply indebted to Doctor Lindsey Hughes of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, and to Miss Cathy Potter of Yale University and the University of Wisconsin who between them read the entire manuscript of this book and corrected errors. Any errors that remain, however, are mine and mine alone.

Thanks are also due to Professor Paul Bushkovitch, of Yale University, who set me upon my path.

I am most grateful to Mr E. Kasinec and the staff of the Slavonic Division of the New York Public Library; to the staff of the Butler Library at the University of Columbia; and to the staff of the London Library for their unfailing help and courtesy. Special thanks are also due to the staff at the Synod of Bishops Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, New York, and the staff at St Vladimir’s Seminary, Crestwood, who helped me to obtain many books.

Thanks are also due to Mr John Roberts, who kindly provided me with helpful contacts and to Mr Vladimir Stabnikov of the Writers Union in Moscow, who greatly facilitated my travels in Russia and gave much useful advice and encouragement. I am grateful also to the staff of the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad who so kindly arranged private tours for me.

There are also many other people, too numerous to mention here, both in the west and in the USSR who, in a private capacity, gave me great help and hospitality for which I shall always be very grateful.

I am most fortunate in having an agent, Gill Coleridge, and two editors, Betty Prashker of Crown Publishers and Rosie Cheetham of Century, whose patience, encouragement and unstinting help made this book possible.

I am deeply grateful to my wife Susan for her kindness and patience during the long process of this book’s gestation. And once again, special thanks are due to Alison Borthwick for her expert map.

Finally, I should like to express a special debt to the Archimandrite and monks of the monastic community of Optina Pustyn, for affording me an unforgettable glimpse of Russia.