Alexandra Kollontai (1872-1952) was a Russian revolutionary, politician, diplomat and Marxist thinker. Serving as the People's Commissar for Welfare in Vladimir Lenin's government in 1917-1918, she was a highly prominent woman within the Bolshevik party and the first woman in history to become an official member of a governing cabinet. She worked tirelessly all her life as a speaker, writer, and organizer for women's emancipation.

lise Hendrick has been working as a freelance translator of a wide variety of medical, legal, technical, literary, and political material since the late 1990s. Her working languages include Russian, Japanese, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Dutch, Portuguese, English, Swedish, Danish, Flemish, Afrikaans, Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Korean, Catalan, and Yiddish, and are likely to expand soon to include Chinese (simplified and traditional) and Finnish.