The current work is, in the main, the result of almost thirty years of research work carried out in numerous archival repositories and libraries, both in Britain and abroad, and I am indebted to the staff at these institutions for the excellent assistance they have provided over the years. On previous occasions, I have acknowledged the invaluable support of successive British Museum archivists – Christopher Date, Janet Wallace, Gary Thorn, Stephanie Clarke and Lyn Rees, and I am pleased to do so again. Similarly, I would like, once more, to express my gratitude to the staff (too numerous to mention individually) of the Rare Books and Music Reading Room and the Newsroom of the British Library in London. In addition, I would like to thank the staff from a number of other international archival repositories and libraries, in particular, Nina Ivanovna Abdullaeva and colleagues at the State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow; Carol Leadenham, Ronald Bulatoff and, more recently, Bert Patenaude, Sarah Patton and Simon Ertz of the Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, CA; and Tanya Chebotareva at the Bakhmeteff Archive, Columbia University, New York. Over the years I have also benefited from the encouragement, suggestions and other aid provided by a range of friends, associates and colleagues such as Christine Thomas, Katya Rogatchevskaya, Julian Putkowski, Sean Mitchell, Alan Sargeant, Phillipa Parker, Martin Dewhirst, my former lecturer at the University of Glasgow, Professor John Gonzalez of the Rozhkov Historical Research Centre, NSW; and Professor David Saunders of Newcastle University.
I have had a long and fruitful association with the School of History at Queen Mary University of London, first as a PhD student and later as an honorary member of staff and would like to thank fellow students and staff alike for their conviviality. I am indebted above all to Dr Jonathan Smele not only for his endless support and encouragement but also for agreeing to read and suggest amendments to an early draft manuscript of this work. I must also express my gratitude to the latter in his former role as editor of Revolutionary Russia and to successive editors of that and other journals such as Solanus, The British Library Journal, Library History, The European Review of History and, indeed, Voprosy istorii KPSS in the pages of which journals some of the materials in the current book appeared for the first time. I am especially grateful to Rebecca Beasley and Phillip Bullock, for inviting me to their 2009 conference ‘Russia in Britain, 1880–1940’, and allowing me to bring Aleksei Teplov and his Free Russian Library to the attention of the public. My thanks are also due to Rhodri Mogford and colleagues at Bloomsbury Academic without whose assistance the eventful career of Vladimir Burtsev would still remain untold.
I must also express my gratitude to Tom Foot for helping Apollinariya Yakubova receive the retrospective international coverage she so richly deserves. It was thanks to his May 2015 Camden New Journal article that I was able to make contact for the first time with Irina Borisovna Dudnik, Apollinariya’s great niece. I am truly honoured to have made the acquaintance of this most kind and generous woman and to have had the opportunity, recently, to meet her in person during a visit to Holland where I received a royal welcome into the home of her daughter Larissa Hilgers and her husband Ruud. I am, of course, grateful beyond words to both Larissa and Ruud for their hospitality and help and, especially, to Irina Borisovna for granting me permission to examine Yakubova’s remarkable diaries and letters and to publish here, for the first time, a selection of her wonderful photographs. I am sure that, like me, all of the family impatiently await the day when more of Yakubova’s papers are unearthed and her full story can at last be told.
Finally, I am indebted, as ever, to my wife, Elaine, whose generosity, calmness and understanding have seen me through some challenging times. Indeed, without her support it is doubtful this book could have been written. Of course, it goes without saying that none of the above-named individuals or institutions are responsible for any errors or omissions which may be found herein. I alone bear responsibility for this work in its final incarnation.