Nikolai Rubakin (1862-1946) spent his whole life concerned with the cultural ascension of the people through literature. He wrote a large number of educational booklets, published manuals for the establishment and management of village libraries and developed into a renowned bibliographer. He kept in close contact with the different revolutionary influences at the time, though he did feel superior to these other parties. He saw more in upbringing and education than in violent action.
He was employed at Posrednik from its beginning, but also published for the Marxist journal Novo Slovo and wrote, under the alias Sergei Michaylovich Nekrasov, illegal pamphlets which were released by the PSR and the RSDRP. From 1907 he lived in Switzerland, where he founded a library in Montreux based on the collection he brought with him from Russia, which were much consulted by revolutionary Russian emigrants; Vera Figner, Georgi Plekhanov and Lenin were amongst its visitors. In 1920 he relocated, along with his library, to Lausanne, where the number of visitors grew significantly. After his death in 1946, the collection – estimated at some 100,000 books – was kept in the Lenin Library (note 1).
Notes
Note 1: Most of the information for this text has been derived from A.E.Senn, Nicholas Rubakin. A life for books (Newtonville, Mass., ORP, 1977).