The author of this book, Mikhail Mikhailovich Novikov, is the last freely elected rector of Moscow University (1919–1920), a prominent biologist, a deputy of the Fourth State Duma. In 1922, the Soviet government expelled him among other famous scientists and public figures from Russia. The book was first published in the United States where M.M. Novikov lived from 1949. The author gives an account of his scientific and social activities in Russia and in emigration.
For all those who are interested in the history of Russian science, education and social life in the late 19th – mid 20th centuries.