I came to work in the Library in the summer of 1971, and fortunately for me, that living legend, Margarita Ivanovna Rudomino, the Library's founder and leader for half a century, was still there. Being a bookworm and a philologist, my job in the Library was just right for me. Since that time my entire career has been connected with this Library. During my long progress from Senior Editor to Director-General I have edited the Library's publications, built book collections, developed programmes of literary soirees and book exhibitions, compiled bibliographies, and finally, administered the Library. Gradually, the Library has come to be the focal point of my whole life, my main business, difficult but rewarding. I am happy and proud to carry on Margarita Ivanovna's traditions: she created and developed the LFL, and I am working towards it renewal. What it is like today, our favourite and demanding Library, is told in this small book which has appeared for the 75th anniversary of the LFL.

      I wish the Margarita Rudomino Library for Foreign Literature every success and I do hope that we shall use it as a beacon to take our bearings from when we finally set that stranded library ship of ours afloat.
      This is a top priority task for this country. Libraries form the foundation of a humanitarian culture. And of course, the importance of humanitarian cultures is on the increase in today's world; and the 21st century will be dominated by humanitarian cultures. That is why it is imperative that we take good care of the libraries, and that is why we treasure so much the life's experience of that great librarian, Margarita Rudomino.

      'Mother's library", as the LFL was referred to in our family, was for me, as the eldest son of Margarita Ivanovna Rudomino, like an older sister whom I, together with all the other members of the family, loved and respected very much. The library's achievements brought joy to our home. But there we many more worries. My mother's life's work, the establishment and development of the LFL, was one painfully bitter struggle for survival against the opposition of Soviet officialdom. She stood up in thal struggle, LFL was not closed down, and it grew from small collection of a few hundred volumes to one of Russia's biggest libraries with a unique profile of its own. At present, the Library's importance is being enhanced still more thanks to its link-up to the Internet, its vast assistance to provincial libraries in their handling of foreign information and their conta with foreign colleagues, and the setting up of foreign countries' cultural centres on its premises. My mother's goal of "making people conscious of world culture" keeps on being implemented. In today's reforming Russia, Margarita Ivanovna's words that the library is "the accumulator-and custodian of man's true spirituality and the foundation of culture" are more than ever to the point.