This is on

This is CBS Eye on the World.

Here's John Bachelor.

Joseph Stalin.

I welcome Professor Jeffrey Roberts, the University of College

Cork. He is an emeritus professor of history and a member of the Royal Irish Academy, but importantly he's the author of a new book,

Stalin's library, a dictator and his books.

Professor, a very good evening to you.

Congratulations and I go immediately to a fascination.

It is a dacha outside of Moscow, and named Bliznaya,

meaning nearby, and the dictator, the general secretary, Stalin, has a library.

You describe it as 30 meters square.

We're standing in the middle of it. What do I see around me Jeff?

Good evening to you. Good evening John and thanks very much for the invitation. Yeah, so in

the mid-1930s Stalin had a new dacha or country mansion, especially constructed for him.

And the centerpiece of this quite grand house was this massive library room which had for a huge bookcases, wide bookcases.

So a room actually containing, you know, if you're standing in a minute

what you would look around, you would see these bookcases and you will see on the shelves

thousands of books.

And in fact, Stalin spent a lot of time in this particular room and indeed, you know, when he dies in March 9th of 2003, that's the room and he has his lead that leads to

So that's what you're what you're looking at but what you're looking at is okay

thousands of books but it's only a very small part of Stalin's personal

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