KASHTANKA
1.
In sin…fiery hyena…:
See note 11 to “The Letter.” By “fiery hyena” the cabinetmaker means “fiery Gehenna,” a biblical name for the place of the damned. “Hyena” in Russian begins with a
g
(“giena”).
THE NAME-DAY PARTY
1.
St. Peter’s day:
See note 2 to “The Shepherd’s Pipe.”
2.
Allah kerim!
:
“God is gracious!” (Turkish).
3.
numbered among the transgressors:
A line from Isaiah 53:12, quoted in Mark 15:28 and Luke 22:37.
4.
infallible Gladstones:
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–98) was a liberal British statesman who served a total of twelve years as prime minister between 1869 and 1894.
5.
Khokhlandia:
i.e., “land of the Khokhols,” a mildly disrespectful Russian nickname for Ukrainians. “Khokhol” is the Ukrainian word for the long lock of hair Ukrainian Cossacks left on their otherwise clean-shaven heads.
6.
seasonable weather…earth:
Words of the Great Litany in the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.
7.
Shchedrin:
Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov (1826–89), who wrote under the pseudonym of Nikolai Shchedrin, was a major satirical novelist and journalist.
8.
a Tolstoyan:
A member of the movement that adopted the principles of Tolstoy’s later social, philosophical, and religious teachings, including manual labor, vegetarianism, and non-resistance to evil.
9.
Proudhon…property is theft:
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–65), French anarchist, coined the phrase “property is theft” in his book
What Is Property?
(1840).
10.
Buckles…Schopenhauers…:
Henry Thomas Buckle (1821–65) was the author of a two-volume
History of Civilization in England
(vol. 1, 1857; vol. 2, 1861), conceived on a scientific basis and a belief in universal laws of history. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) was an extremely influential German philosopher, known especially for his work
The World as Will and Representation
(1818; expanded in 1844), in which he developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system.
11.
the day of Elijah the prophet:
See note 1 to “The Shepherd’s Pipe.”
12.
Penderaklia
:
The name of a bay in the Black Sea, place of Turkish shipbuilding and scene of battles during the Russo-Turkish War of 1810–11. The name was also given to a refurbished Turkish ship which in 1877 became part of the Russian navy.
13.
zemstvo activists:
A zemstvo was a local government assembly, instituted by the tsar Alexander II as part of his reforms after the abolition of serfdom in 1861.
14.
Butlerov’s beehives:
Alexander Mikhailovich Butlerov (1828–86) was a distinguished Russian chemist who was also interested in agriculture, horticulture, and beekeeping. His book,
The Bee, Its Life, and the Main Rules of Sensible Beekeeping,
went through more than ten editions before the revolution. However, there was also an English writer, Charles Butler (1571–1647), author of a book on beekeeping (1609), which includes a chapter on how to construct beehives. The Russian spelling of the name could refer to either man, though the former is more likely.
15.
property qualifications:
The requirement of owning a certain amount of property in order to stand for election or hold government office.
16.
the Royal Doors:
See note 3 to “The Nightmare.”
A BREAKDOWN
1.
the image and likeness of God:
See note 10 to “The Letter.”
2.
Saint Mary of Egypt:
A sixth-century saint who began life as a prostitute in Alexandria but, after making her way to Jerusalem and undergoing a mystical conversion, retired to the desert for many years. She is commemorated on the fifth Sunday of the Great Lent, and her life written by St. Sophronius of Jerusalem is read on Thursday of the following week.
3.
Without my will…doth draw me:
Lines from Pushkin’s dramatic poem
Rusalka
(“The Water Nymph,” 1832), which was made into an opera (1848–55) by Alexander Dargomyzhsky (1813–69).
4.
The Leaflet
:
i.e.,
The Moscow Leaflet
, a cultural and political paper of the time.
5.
Marshal Bazaine:
François Achille Bazaine (1811–88) served under Louis-Philippe and Napoleon III, rose to the rank of maréchal, the highest rank in the French military, was accused of treason under the Third Republic in 1873, but escaped and died in exile.
6.
Aïda:
Heroine of the opera of the same name (1871), by Giuseppi Verdi (1813–1901), set in ancient Egypt, which tells the love story of a captured Ethiopian princess and an Egyptian general and is usually staged with elaborate costumes.
7.
Niva
:
a popular illustrated magazine.
8.
Wednesday:
Orthodox Christians abstain from eating meat on Wednesday and Friday.
THE PRINCESS
1.
Archimandrite:
In the Russian Orthodox Church, the title given to the abbot of a large and important monastery.
2.
lose the image and likeness:
See note 10 to “The Letter.”
3.
thirty-five thousand messengers:
A borrowing from a fantastical speech by Khlestakov, central character of
The Inspector
(1836), a comedy by Nikolai Gogol (1809–52).
4.
“How glorious is our Lord in Zion…”:
A hymn composed at the end of the eighteenth century by Dmitri Bortniansky (1751–1825) to words by the poet Mikhail Kheraskov (1733–1807).
5.
What is Hecuba to you…:
See
Hamlet
, Act II, scene 2, ll. 562–3: “What’s Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba / That he should weep for her?”
AFTER THE THEATER
1.
the sort of letter Tatiana wrote:
In Book III of Pushkin’s novel in verse,
Evgeny Onegin
(1825–1832), Tatiana, the heroine of the novel, makes a desperate confession of her love in a letter to Onegin. Pushkin’s poem-novel was made into an opera by Tchaikovsky.
HISTORY OF A BUSINESS ENTERPRISE
1.
Mikhailovsky: