A fascinatingly many-sided personality . Vadim Bytensky retains the broadly arching interests of the traditional Russian intellectual . a man with a broad and devoted knowledge of world literature, music, philosophy, and politics that constantly illuminate his traveler's observations." "Bytensky emerges . as a well-rounded and harmonious personality, who combines sober reasoning with a romantic enthusiasm, a sentimental attachment to an old cultural inheritance, and an open, if sometimes skeptical and critical, curiosity about things new."