Lidiia Chukovskaia was an editor and the author of children's books, criticism, fiction, poetry, and a variety of journalistic works. She played Boswell to the banned poet Anna Andreevna Akhmatova during the darkest days of Stalinist repression, and for twenty years, beginning during the "Thaw," she was a leading figure in the Soviet dissident movement. For her many admirers in Russia and abroad her importance lies more in her personality than in her publications, but her writing seems sure to remain crucial to Russian history and literature.

Lidiia Korneevna Chukovskaia was born on 24 March 1907 in St. Petersburg to the literary critic, memoirist, author of children's verse, editor, and translator Kornei Ivanovich Chukovsky (born Nikolai Vasil'evich Korneichukov) and Maria Borisovna Chukovskaia. She had an older brother, Nikolai, and two younger siblings, Boris and Maria; the latter died of tuberculosis as a child. Her early education was mostly at the...