Rebekah Markovna Frumkina, world-famous scientist, founder of a large research school in linguistics, presents to the reader his memoirs and reflections on the fate of the Russian intelligentsia. The book, written with captivating directness and sincerity, recreates the atmosphere of a tragic conflict between creative thought and the aggressiveness of the bureaucratic leadership of science. This conflict, which stretched over many decades, led to the collapse of schools, the leakage of brilliant minds, personal disasters, disappointments and irreparable losses. Nevertheless, the memoirs of R. M. Frumkina are permeated with a sense of the ethical need to search for scientific truth, conviction in the correctness of the old postulate "learning is light" and faith in the dignity and saving beauty of intelligence.