Petersburg (89 page)

  
6
  
Hadusai:
the great Japanese painter and graphic artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849).

  
7
  
Dunc
a
n and Nik
i
sch:
Sofya Petrovna uses the French pronunciation of the names of Isadora Duncan (1878–1927), the American dancer, and Arthur Nikisch (1855–1922), the celebrated Hungarian orchestral conductor.
According to received Russian pronunciation, the stress would fall on the first syllable of each surname.

  
8
  
meloplastics:
meloplastika,
a word invented by Bely as a humorous slip for
mimoplyaska
(mime-dance), a term invented in 1908 by the ballet critic Nikolai Vashkevich, with reference to Duncan’s dancing. Sofya Petrovna’s confusion is made all the more grotesque by the fact that
meloplastika
also suggests
metalloplastika
(metalloplastics), a craft taught to Russian schoolgirls that involved the tracing of designs with a heated needle on specially treated metal plates.

  
9
  
Henri Besançon:
Angel Peri’s mind has concocted a somewhat grotesque compound of Henri Bergson and Annie Besant (the theosophist author of
Man and His Bodies
).

10
  
the Gregorian Regiment:
the regiment is a fictitious one, though it is given verisimilitude by being placed under the patronage of a foreign monarch – and one of the royal hussar regiments in Russia was in fact headed by King Chakrabon of Siam.

11
  
khokhol
-Little Russian:
i.e.
Ukrainian.
Khokhol
is the derogatory Russian name for a Ukrainian, while ‘Little Russian’ means the same thing – the two expressions form a tautology.

12
  
Lippanchenko:
this character is probably modelled on the real-life composer S.V. Panchenko (1867–1937), who was a friend of the poet Blok’s wife, Lyubov’ Dmitrievna, with whom Bely was for a time infatuated, believing her to be an incarnation of the Holy Sophia invoked in the apocalyptic writings of the philosopher Vladimir Solovyov. Panchenko was obviously perceived by Bely as a rival.

13
  
dushkan
:
darling (Ukr.).

14
  
brankukan, bran-kukashka
or
brankukanchik
:
more Ukrainian endearments.

15
  
The Red Buffoon:
Bely’s image of the ‘red buffoon’ or ‘red jester’ is derived from Edgar Allan Poe’s short story ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ (1845).
Bely also wrote a verse ballad entitled ‘The Buffoon’ (
Shut,
1911) in which a hunchbacked figure in a satin cape is the central character.

16
  
Freak, frog:
possibly a reference to another story of Poe’s, ‘Hop-Frog’ (1849).

17
  
the Ciniselli Circus:
an indoor circus, housed in a stone building on the Fontanka, that performed during the winter months.

18
  
civil servants of the fourth class:
according to the Table of Ranks, these included real state councillors, ober-procurators, master heralds, major generals (in the army) and junior admirals (in the navy).

19
  
the fields of bloodstained Manchuria:
most of the fighting in the Russo-Japanese war took place in Manchuria.

20
  
crowds inundated … clergy:
a reference to the funeral of Prince Sergei Nikolayevich Trubetskoy (1862–1905), a noted liberal campaigner.
His funeral acquired the character of a political demonstration both in Petersburg and in Moscow.

21
  
Peter’s little house:
in Russian,
Petrovskiy domik
– Peter the Great’s Summer Palace, designed by Trezini and built in the Summer Garden, 1710–1712.

22
  
Torricellian vacuum:
the Italian physicist and pupil of Galileo, Evangelista Torricelli (1608–47), devised the mercury barometer, demonstrating the ability of air pressure to support a finite column of mercury.
A Torricellian vacuum is an airless space formed above the surface of a liquid in a closed vessel.

23
  
Morzhov:
a comical name in Russian, suggesting a walrus.
The name also has obscene connotations.

24
  
Gregory of Nyssa:
bishop of Nyssa, who lived
c.
335–94 AD, and one of the Cappadocian Fathers, the younger brother of St Basil the Great.
A Platonist, Neoplatonist and ascetic thinker.

25
  
Ephraem Syrus:
a fourth-century Christian Church father and ecclesiastical writer (
c.
306–73).

26
  
the Apocalypse:
the Church Slavonic name for ‘Revelation’, the book of St John the Divine.

27
  
academist:
a student of the Ecclesiastical Academy.

28
  
Harnack:
Adolf Harnack (1851–1930), German Protestant theologian who preached a Christian morality based on universal brotherhood.

29
  
schemonach:
a monk who has taken the
schema,
the highest monastic
rank in the Orthodox Church, demanding the fulfilment of a number of exacting tasks and statutes.

30
  
Narodnaya Volya:
the ‘People’s Will’ movement, a populist revolutionary organization.

31
  
St George’s medal:
a military decoration established by Catherine the Great, and extended to the lower ranks in 1807.

32
  
Yakutsk region:
a region of north-eastern Siberia.
Many political exiles were sent there.

33
  
I was brought out in a pickled cabbage barrel:
an episode from the life of the Socialist Revolutionary activist Grigory Andreyevich Gershuni (1870–1908).

34
  
Helsingfors:
the Swedish – and Imperial Russian – name for the capital of Finland, until 1917 a Grand Duchy under the protection of Russia, and a part of its Empire.
The city is now called Helsinki (though still known as Helsingfors among the Finnish–Swedish minority).

35
  
Kaigorodov:
Dmitry Nikiforovich Kaigorodov (1866–1924), the Russian botanist, entomologist, birdwatcher and pedagogue, whose most famous work was ‘From the Kingdom of Our Feathered Friends’ (
Iztsarstva pernatykh,
1892).

36
  
Yesterday the eyes had looked:
there is an apparent inconsistency in Bely’s text here: Dudkin’s encounter with the senator on Nevsky Prospect and their subsequent meeting in Ableukhov’s house take place on the same day.

37
  
A certain gloomy building:
probably St Petersburg University.

38
  
phytin
:
a medicinal preparation that was used in the treatment of nervous disorders, hysteria, et cetera.

39
  
the perennial Horseman:
Falconet’s equestrian monument to Peter the Great (1782), situated on Senate Square.
It cost 450,000 roubles.

40
  
Finnish granite:
the base of the monument is a large slab of Finnish granite.

41
  
lower your hooves:
the images here are drawn from Pushkin’s poem
The Bronze Horseman.

42
  
shaking of the earth
:
Bely uses the archaic Russian word for earthquake –
trus.

43
  
Nizhny, Vladimir and Uglich:
Nizhny is also known as Nizhny Novgorod.
All three towns are situated north-east of Moscow and represent Russia’s medieval past.

44
  
Tsushima:
the naval battle at Tsushima on 14–15 May 1905 ended with the complete destruction of a Russian squadron.

45
  
Kalka:
the tributary of the river Kalmius at which the Russian Princes and their Cuman allies were defeated by the Mongol–Tartar forces on 21 May 1223.

46
  
Kulikovo Field:
the site of the battle between the Russian forces, under the leadership of Dmitry Donskoi, and the Mongol–Tartar army, on 8 September 1380.
The battle ended in victory for the Russians.

47
  
Mongol mugs:
this is a reference to the Japanese delegation that visited Petersburg in 1905 in order to conclude the peace treaty between Russia and Japan.

48
  
Styopka:
Styopka, the son of the shopowner Ivan Stepanov, is a character from Bely’s novel
The Silver Dove
(1909).
Petersburg,
which was intended as the second part of the trilogy, contains a number of references to him.
In
The Silver Dove
he leaves his native village and disappears into the unknown.

49
  
Bessmertny:
the name means ‘immortal’.

50
  
Tselebeyevo:
the village in which the action of
The Silver Dove
takes place.

51
  
strange people:
the mystical sectarians who are the ‘doves’ in the earlier novel.

52
  
a visiting
barin
:
a reference to Pyotr Daryalsky, the principal character in
The Silver Dove.
Styopka relates various elements of the novel’s plot.

53
  
“The First Distiller”:
Lev Tolstoy’s folk comedy of the same title (1886), illustrating the evils of drink.

54
  
temple:
probably the Buddhist meeting-house in Staraya Derevnya (then a Petersburg suburb), the construction of which lasted from 1909 until 1915, and had the support of the Dalai Lama.

55
  
Philadelphia:
in Greek, ‘brotherly love’.
A town in Lydia, Asia Minor, named after its founder Attala II Philadelphos.
It was the seat of one of the seven churches of Asia mentioned in the Book of Revelation (2–3), and offered certain promises for the future there (3:7–13).
The
Philadelphian Christians believed that they would be saved from the temptation that would affect the whole world, and their church survived in isolation in the midst of Muslim lands.

56
  
the cult of Sophia:
the Greek word σoΦíα means ‘mastery, knowledge, wisdom’, a concept associated with the idea of the semantic completeness and organization of things.
In the philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov it came to stand for the eternal feminine which he perceived to lie at the base of divinity, the collective mystical body of Logos, and the ideal man.
It was closely associated with the Solovyovian concept of the ‘universal soul’.
Solovyov’s poem ‘Three Encounters’ (
Tri svidaniya,
1898) describes the philosopher’s meetings with the ‘eternal friend’ – one of these takes place in the reading room of the British Museum.

57
  
the Nizhny Novgorod female sectarians:
a reference to Anna Nikolayevna Schmidt (1851–1905), the Nizhny Novgorod mystic who wrote a treatise entitled ‘The Third Testament’.
She corresponded with Vladimir Solovyov, and Bely met her at the home of the philosopher’s brother, M.S.
Solovyov, in 1900.

58
  
1912:
Bely believed that years ending in 12 played a decisive and mystical role in Russia’s fate and history.

59
  
Even so, come Lord Jesus:
cf.
Revelation 22:20.

CHAPTER THE THIRD

  
1
  
Though he’s an ordinary sort of fellow:
the epigraph is from Pushkin’s poem
Yezersky.
Line 6 of Pushkin’s original reads
Khot’ chelovek on ne voyennyi
(‘Though he’s no military man’).
Bely either misquotes, or uses a non-standard text.
Many editions of
Peterburg
have a misprint in line 2, where
Ne
(No) is given as
No
(But).

  
2
  
A Holiday:
5 October was the name-day of the Tsarevich Alexei, heir to the Russian throne.
But the holiday could also have been occasioned by Witte’s being made a count after his conclusion of the peace negotiations with the Japanese, which were accounted a great diplomatic success.
The official state reception for this event was also on 5 October.

  
3
  
a shot was fired:
the daily cannon-shot from the Peter and Paul Fortress at twelve noon.

  
4
  
from the third class to the first class inclusive:
according to the Table of Ranks established by Peter the Great, there were fourteen classes for each rank.