page_title: Charles Theodore Hagberg Wright
section_title: Public activities
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Theodore Hagberg Wright / Biography / Public activities
caption_attribution_description: English: Charles Theodore Hagberg Wright, Mill Hill Cemetery, London, England, Section D8 Grave 125
context_page_description: Sir Charles Theodore Hagberg Wright, LL.D. was the Secretary and Librarian of the London Library from 1893 until his death. He managed expansion of the library and compiled a comprehensive catalogue of its collection. The Times called him "the guiding genius" of the library, the driving force behind the four decades of its growth. The Library itself hails Wright as "the real architect of the London Library as it is today".
  Wright was a highly public person and frequently engaged in political debates. His scholarly interests ranged from the history of the colonization of Africa to translation of Leo Tolstoy. He had a reputation of a liberal russophile and was involved in Russian radical politics and wartime humanitarian aid to Russian soldiers and academics.
context_section_description: In 1901 Wright was the founding member of the African Society and contributed an article on the German colonization of Africa to the first issue of the Journal of the African Society. After the outbreak of World War I Hagberg Wright signed the Reply to German Professors by British Scholars asserting that "we must carry on the war on which we have entered. For us, as for Belgium, it is a war of defense waged for liberty and peace." During the war he campaigned for the establishment of libraries for the Russian prisoners in Germany.
  Wright had a reputation of a liberal russophile. He translated works by Leo Tolstoy, and wrote that Tolstoy's greatness "has been obscured from us rather than enhanced by his duality: a realist who strove to demolish the mysticism of Christianity and became himself a mystic in the contemplation of Nature." In 1908 Wright personally presented Tolstoy a letter signed by more than 700 English admirers. Wright noted Tolstoy's "apparent serenity" but did not mention his aversion to public events. Tolstoy lamented in his diary: "At this advanced age, when there is nothing left to think about but death, they want to bother me with that!". Later, Wright provided legal support to Tolstoy's secretary Vladimir Chertkov and his family after their emigration to England.
  Wright welcomed Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Nabokov, Alexey Tolstoy to London and introduced them to English writers and publishers of his circle. He was an important figure of the Anglo-Russian Committee, an organization that regularly exposed Russian political troubles to the British public. Before World War I he actively engaged in radical Russian politics. In 1908 Wright, Henry Nevinson, and Peter Kropotkin campaigned to raise money for the escape of Russian revolutionary Maria Spiridonova, who was serving life sentence for a murder. Spiridonova declined the offer and stayed in Siberia. During the Russian Civil War Wright joined the British Committee for Aiding Men of Letters and Science in Russia. He contributed to the publications of primary documents related to the final years of the House of Romanov and the revolutions of 1917.
caption: Wright's grave in Mill Hill Cemetery, London
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