Perspective

The author writes this book from the perspective of a man who lived 1895-1975, born at the tail end of the 19th century yet living the majority of his life in the 20th century. While this changeover is primarily psychological on the mass scale, it remains an essential factor. The man wrote this book having lived through a major political and cultural revolution within his home nation. Just to add to it, the energies that drove the Revolution were also involved with the factors that caused the first World War.

The author writes the book as a proud Russian. This being the case, when he writes about Rabelais, he is writing from the margins. The Russians are Europeans to a large extent, but are also set apart from the rest of Europe. This is partly due its gigantic size, the Eurasian flavor of it, and its operational reality...