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that was not fully documented by school or personal records.

      Let’s consider the circumstances of both Rand and Lossky:

      In 1961, when Rand had told her future biographer of her encounters with Lossky, she had already achieved a worldwide following. Though she was not taken seriously by many academics, it is unlikely that the mere mention of Lossky’s name would have created a stir of excitement in the United States,⁵⁴ where, until the latter part of 1961, the elderly professor had been living in relative obscurity. In fact, as I indicated in Chapter 2, Lossky had entered a French-Russian nursing home by October 1961. He was weak and very ill until his death in 1965.⁵⁵

      But any fabrication on the part of Rand could have been easily debunked by a search of the historical record. Except for this brief passage in the 1962 essay, duplicated, for the most part, in Branden’s 1986 biography, the Lossky-Rand experience has not been written about or discussed in any interviews, public forums, articles, or books. Although Rand’s recollection of her final examination experience with Lossky is predictably self-complimentary, it was not Rand’s style to bolster her credentials by fabrication, name-dropping, or by acknowledging a professor whose religious philosophy she would have adamantly opposed.

      Barbara Branden (1986) writes: “During the years of my friendship with Ayn Rand, I was always impressed with the range and exactitude of her memory” (13). Branden never found Rand to make a mistake about a date or time and could not imagine that Rand would have fabricated the Lossky experience.⁵⁶ In fact, Branden claims that although Rand’s recollections of other teachers were partial and incomplete, Lossky remained “very memorable.”⁵⁷ There were no other professors whom Rand acknowledged as having made an impact on her in any positive way.⁵⁸ Furthermore, Branden argues, Rand seemed to know the ancient philosophers very well. What she gained from this single course was enormous.⁵⁹

      I find it very difficult to believe that Rand was mistaken or that she lied about her experiences with the celebrated professor. Lossky’s circumstances, however, are somewhat more complex. Though Lossky’s son, Boris, characterizes the relationship between his father and Rand as quite possibly historical fiction, he makes “an extenuating caution in this judgment.”⁶⁰ Lossky’s appointment to the Institute of Scientific Research on the fringe of the university was different from most. The Council allowed Lossky to teach philosophical disciplines at the Institute with the provision that they not be tainted with spiritualist ideology. He could have lectured in logic, epistemology, psychology, and similar areas of study. Quite possibly among these other areas would have been a course in ancient philosophy, or a course in epistemology, surveying Plato, Aristotle, and other classical thinkers. Lossky would have lectured his students throughout the semester and followed the traditional procedure of testing his students’ proficiency by written and oral examination. In this manner, the students would have received credit for the course, even though it was offered at the annex (B. Lossky, 29 May–4 June 1992C).

      But to speculate on Lossky’s activities at the Institute of Scientific Research poses a further problem: the courses are untraceable. Any such “elective” course, taught by a censured professor at the university annex, would not have received “official” academic visibility. Alissa Rosenbaum must have been aware of Lossky’s eminent reputation as an exceptional educator, since he had taught at the Stoiunin Gymnasium. She might have been pleasantly surprised to discover him at the Petrograd annex. She would have had to make a deliberate, conscious decision to enroll not merely in a philosophy course, but specifically in Lossky’s class. She would have needed permission to attend his lectures. The considerable effort she would have expended to arrange this suggests that she knew of Lossky’s reputation as a brilliant philosopher or, perhaps, as a dedicated anticommunist. Boris Lossky does not deny these possibilities. Unfortunately, there are no institute listings in the family “red book” of Lossky’s publication and pedagogical activities (B. Lossky, 27 October 1992C).

      Another aspect of Barbara Branden’s passage might provide a clue to the peculiar circumstances surrounding Lossky and Rand. Rand’s recollections of her oral examinations in the spring indicate that she went to Lossky’s home, rather than to an office or university classroom. This would have been unusual, but entirely within the realm of possibilities, given the appalling conditions at the university and its related institutes. Boris remembers that there was an acute shortage of firewood. It was so cold at the university that the office ink would freeze up (B. Lossky 1991, 77). The general lack of fuel led his father to schedule a number of student meetings in the enlarged dining room of his residence. These meetings may have been more frequent due to Lossky’s illness, which kept him at home, intermittently, from the fall of 1921 through March of 1922. Final examinations were held in June. Boris Lossky recollects that several of his father’s students visited their home during the period in question to discuss philosophy. He does not remember seeing a long line of nervous students waiting outside his father’s study in the spring, nor does he remember Alissa Rosenbaum (B. Lossky, 29 May–4 June 1992C).

      Aside from the unlikely possibility that Rand lied, one of the worst-case scenarios, then, is that she colored her recollections of the spring examination with a certain theatricality. There is another hypothesis that one could suggest: Rand may have remembered the examination incident perfectly, but not which professor was involved.⁶¹ But I doubt this, given Barbara Branden’s insistence that Rand’s recollections of Lossky were “very memorable.” This is not to imply that Rand could never make a mistake; there is evidence that Rand did not remember every detail and date correctly. For instance, in my discussion of her relationship with the Nabokov sister, I discovered that Rand was mistaken regarding the date of the Nabokovs’ departure from Russia. Boris Lossky also questions a number of Rand’s reminiscences. Having read Branden’s biography, he suggests for instance, that she slightly exaggerated the harshness of the 1917 Petrograd winter. He also notes some discrepancies in Rand’s recollections of particular dates caused by the differences between the “old style” and “new style” calendars.⁶²

      But discrepancies in dates or temperatures are minor compared to a mistake in the recollection of a human being. Given the extenuating circumstances surrounding Lossky’s annex activities, it is my conviction that Rand has accurately described an actual event. Though I cannot prove this judgment, I firmly believe that it is the best explanation of the facts. The evidence suggests that Rand genuinely appreciated the privilege of studying with such a distinguished scholar. She remembers that in her freshman year at Petrograd, “many students and professors were fairly open.” After the government crackdown, “all the better professors from prerevolutionary times were exiled to Europe.”⁶³ Lossky was one of them. By another “accident” of historical circumstance, young Alissa Rosenbaum had been among the very last students taught by Lossky in his native land.

      A REIGN OF TERROR

      But Lossky was not alone in his fate. Academic freedom was slowly eradicated in the years after the Revolution. The government had created rabfaks (workers’ colleges), which offered workers a kind of general equivalency diploma in preparation for attending the university. The professors were told to pass these students even if they fell below established academic standards (Fitzpatrick 1979, 65).

      This was not the only hardship university academics faced in Petrograd. Typhus, influenza, pneumonia, cholera, and starvation were becoming commonplace. Sorokin recalls that in the cafeterias of Petrograd, discussion was monopolized by reports of secret police arrests and executions. Some scholars chose suicide. Faculty meetings became ongoing memorials to the dead. The rector of Petrograd University asked his colleagues not to die so quickly because there was a lack of coffins and graves. In time, coffins had to be rented to transport bodies to the collective ditches. Sorokin ([1924] 1950) remarked: “Not even in death can we escape Communism!” (231).

      In the face of such inhumanity, and in the aftermath of the NEP, new liberal scholarly journals were founded. Satirical writings, such as Zamiatin’s We, began to circulate. Monuments to socialism and to Marx were desecrated, and many people returned to the Church. The Central Committee of the Communist Party feared the “growing influence of a revitalized bourgeois

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