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The Collected Works of Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin.
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Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature
Endmatter

Endmatter

Endnotes

1 Pronounce Ook-ra-ee-nian.

2 English readers will find the translation of this poem in full the excellent anthology of Russian Literature from the Early Period to the Present Time, by Leo Wiener, published in two volumes in 1902, by G. P. Putnam & Sons, at New York. Professor Wiener knows Russian literature perfectly well, and has made a very happy choice of a very great number of the most characteristic passages from Russian writers, beginning with the oldest period (911), and ending with our contemporaries, Górkiy and Merezhkóvskiy.

3 The Russian name of the first capital of Russia is Moskvá. However, “Moscow,” like “Warsaw,” etc., is of so general a use that it would be affectation to use the Russian name.

4 In all names the vowels a, e, i, o, u have to be pronounced as in Italian (father, then, in, on, push).

5 In the years 1730–1738 he was ambassador at London.

6 In 1775–1782 she spent a few years at Edinburgh for the education of her son.

7 Two free editions of it were made, one by Herzen at London: Prince Scherbátoff and A. Radischeff, 1858; and another at Leipzig: Journey, in 1876. See A. Pypin’s History of Russian Literature, vol. iv.

8 Pronounce Zh as a French j (Joukóvskiy in French).

9 It is now know how much of the preparatory work which rendered Karamzín’s History possible was done by the Academicians Schlötzer, Müller, and Stritter, as well as by the above-mentioned historian Scherbátoff, who had thoroughly studied the annals and whose views Karamzín closely followed in his work.

10 The great composer Glínka has made of this fairy tale a most beautiful opera (Rustán I Ludmíla), in which Russian, Finnish, Turkish, and Oriental music are intermingled in order to characterise the different heroes.

11 For all translations, not otherwise mentioned, it is myself who is responsible.

12 There is a good English translation of The Inspector-General, from which, with slight revision, I take the following passage.

13 [This was in those times an expression which meant “without paying.”]

14 The only exception to be made is the scene with the two old people in Virgin Soil. It is useless and out of place. To have introduced it was simply “a literary whim.”

15 Taken from the excellent translation by Mrs. Constance Garnett, in Heinemann’s edition of Turguéneff’s works.

16 This has struck most critics. Thus, speaking of War and Peace, Pílsareff wrote: “The images he has created have their own life, independently of the intentions of the author; they enter into direct relations with the readers, speak for themselves, and unavoidably bring the reader to such thoughts and conclusions as the author never had in view and of which he, perhaps, would not approve.” (Works, V1. P. 420.)

17 Introduction to the Criticism of Dogmatic Theology and to an Analysis of the Christian Teaching, or Confession; Vol. I of Tchertkoff’s edition of Works prohibited by the Russian Censorship (in Russian), Christchurch, 1902, p. 13.

18 “That which some people told me, and of which I sometimes had tried to persuade myself — namely, that a man should desire happiness, not for himself only, but for others, his neighbours, and for all men as well: this did not satisfy me. Firstly, I could not sincerely desire happiness for others as much as for myself; secondly, and chiefly, others, in like manner as myself, were doomed to unhappiness and death, and therefore all my efforts for other people’s happiness were useless. I despaired.” The understanding that personal happiness is best found in the happiness of all did not appeal to him, and the very striving towards the happiness of all, and an advance towards it, he thus found insufficient as a purpose in life.

19 See Anabaptism from its Rise at Zwickau to its Fall at Münister, 1521–1536, by Richard Heath (Baptist Manuals, 1, 1895).

20 The Christian Teaching, Introduction, p. vi. In another similar passage he adds Marcus Aurelius and Lao-tse to the above-mentioned teachers.

21 What is my Belief, ch. X, p. 145 of Tchertkoff’s edition of Works prohibited by Russian Censorship. On pp. 18 and 19 of the little work, What is Religion and What is its Substance. Tolstóy expresses himself even more severely about “Church Christianity.” He also gives us in this remarkable little work his ideas about the substance of religion altogether, from which one can deduct its desirable relations to science, to synthetic philosophy, and to philosophical ethics.

22 Shakespeare has always been a great favourite in Russia, but his dramas require a certain wealth of scenery not always at the disposal of the Small Theatre.

23 Taken from the excellent translation of Mrs. C. Garnett (The Storm, London, Duckworth & Co., 1899).

24 I borrow these remarks about the predecessors of Byelínskiy from an article on Literary Criticism in Russia, by Professor Ivánoff, in the Russian Encyclopædic Dictionary, Vol. 32, 771.

25 The speech of Homyakóff is reproduced in Skabitchévskiy’s History (1. c.). I was very anxious to get Tolstóy’s speech, because I think that the ideas he expressed about “the permanent in Art, the universal” hardly did exclude the denunciation of the ills from which a society suffers at a given moment. Perhaps he meant what Nekrásoff also meant when he described the literature to which Schédrin’s Provincial Sketches had given origin as “a flagellation of the petty thieves for the pleasure of the big ones.” Unfortunately, this speech was not printed, and the manuscript of it could not be found.