This book could never have been possible without the agreement and assistance of the author’s daughter, Ekaterina Vasilievna Korotkova-Grossman, and stepson, Fyodor Guber. We are most grateful to them for their help with manuscripts and photographs.
Once again, Professor Anatoly Chernobayev has aided us enormously with excellent advice and introductions. The staff of RGALI (the Russian State Archive for Literature and the Arts) have been unfailingly helpful. Angelica von Hase has checked out further details in Germany arising from the notebooks and Olga Romanov and Simon Marks have assisted on points of detail. We would also like to thank those who have read the manuscript for us: Sir Rodric Braithwaite, Professor Geoffrey Hosking and Dr Catherine Merridale. Needless to say, any mistakes which remain are entirely our responsibility.
The editors and publishers are grateful to Ekaterina Vasilievna Korotkova-Grossman and the Russian State Archive of Film and Photo Documents for permission to reproduce the photographs.
This book also owes its very existence to the enthusiasm of our agent Andrew Nurnberg, to Geoff Mulligan and Stuart Williams at Harvill Secker, and particularly to Christopher MacLehose, Grossman’s first publisher in this country, who encouraged the project from the start, and improved the book immeasurably with his impeccable editing.