Mark Veniaminovich Vishniak, 1883-1977, was a Russian Socialist leader and author, as well as editor of the Russian periodical Sovremennye Zapiski (Contemporary Review). He was born in Moscow on January 15, 1883, and studied law at Moscow University. After the Russian Revolution of 1905, Vishniak became a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary party. He briefly served as the secretary of the Russian Constituent Assembly before it was disbanded by Vladimir Lenin in 1918. Vishniak was arrested several times both for his Socialist-Revolutionary and his anti-Bolshevik views. He escaped to Paris, where he founded the periodical Sovremennye Zapiski (Contemporary Review) in 1920. The Socialist-Revolutionary magazine published poetry and fiction written by Russian emigrants, and it was one of the first journals to publish the work of Vladimir Nabokov. During World War II, Vishniak left France for the United States, where he taught Russian at Cornell University. After the war, he joined the staff of Time magazine as a writer and researcher at their "Russian Desk." He also published 22 books, focusing much of his work on the rights of exiles, minority groups, and the Jewish community. He died on August 31, 1976.