Personal Tragedy and the Dacha Library: Colleague Geoffrey Roberts recounts that following the suicide of his wife Nadia in 1932, Stalin became more isolated, moving his routine to the Blizhnyaya dacha, which became the "center of gravity" for his books e

Personal Tragedy and the Dacha Library: Colleague Geoffrey Roberts recounts that following the suicide of his wife Nadia in 1932, Stalin became more isolated, moving his routine to the Blizhnyaya dacha, which became the "center of gravity" for his books eventually numbering around 25,000, suggesting that like Machiavelli, Stalin felt most among friends when surrounded by his library.
1934