Foreword
I have made a thorough study of Russian history from its earliest beginnings to the present day. Of that part of modern Russian history which immediately preceded the Revolution I was an eyewitness, and not only that; for ten years I was an active participant in it. I came from outside, but grew spiritually into the mass of the Russian people, and penetrated deeply into the mysteries of the Russian soul. I, too, am a son of that great Slavic family which is headed by Russia, and my understanding gives me a certain authority to speak even if only about such things as I saw and participated in myself. Space does not permit me to include all the interesting and valuable details that I should like to mention, and I have therefore confined myself to my own personal experiences, letting these constitute the framework of the book.
The disadvantage of this method has of course been the frequency with which I have been compelled to mention my own name, but I trust that the reader will forgive this apparent absorption in self, since it means that he will be reading only of such events as his author actually took part in.
Seventeen years ago when I came to America out of the thick of it, very much in the bad books of the Bolshevik movement, and escaping its vengeance almost by miracle, I was asked to write my account for the newspapers. At that time I refused. It all seemed too near to sift and sort and put on paper. Since then, however, I have been constantly thinking it over both in the light of my own ripening comprehension of what I witnessed and in the light of what others have written, and I have come to feel that it is my duty to tell what I know.
In writing this book I had no other aim than to give a frank and unpretentious account of the facts and events that came under my observation as they brought a great country to its tremendous cataclysm.
Bishop Mardary
Serbian St. Sava Monastery
Libertyville, Ill.
October, 1935
