Petersburg (Penguin Classics)

by Andrei Bely

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.

  5 cavalier of St Anne: originally a Holstein military decoration, included in the Russian list of honours by Paul I in 1797.

  6 White Eagle: a Polish military honour, included in the Russian list of honours in 1815.

  7 likhach: a smart cab and its driver.

  8 bogatyr: a hero in Russian folklore.

  9 My devachanic friend: in Sanskrit, Devachan is ‘the place of the gods’ – for theosophists, the name of heaven.

  10 opoponax: an aromatic resin with a musky odour, obtained from the plant of the same name.

  11 and from the kingdom of necessity create the kingdom of freedom: these words originate from a passage in Friedrich Engels’s Anti-Dübring.

  12 Noble, slender, pale: there is an obvious similarity between Varvara Yevgrafovna’s poem and Pushkin’s poem ‘Once a poor knight there did live’ (Zhil na svete rytsar’ bednyi, 1829), in its revision of 1835:

  Full of a pure love,

  Faithful to a delightful dream,

  A.M.D. [Ave Mater Dei, tr.] with his blood

  He traced upon his shield.

  Dostoyevsky makes much play with these lines in his novel The Idiot, and they were also used by Blok as the epigraph to one of his poems (‘A.M. Dobrolyubov’, 1903).

  13 Apperception: a Leibnizian term, denoting the transition from a lower to a higher state of consciousness. In Russian, appertseptsiya (apperception) and perets (pepper) sound very close to each other.

  14 Cohen’s Theorie der Erfahrung: the book Kants Theorie der Erfahrung (1871) by the German philosopher Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), founder of the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism.

  15 Kant, Comte: in Russian, the two names differ by only one letter (Kant = Kant, Comte = Kont).

  16 Mill’s Logic: John Stuart Mill’s System of Logic (1843) was a formative influence on nineteenth-century Russian social thought.

  17 Sigwart’s Logic: the two-volume work (1873–8) by the German Neo-Kantian philosopher Christoph von Sigwart (1830–1904).

  18 professor of the philosophy of law: an allusion to the life of Pobedonostsev, who graduated from the Imperial Law School in 1846 and subsequently occupied the chair of Civil Law.

  19 Bundist-socialist: the Bund was a national Jewish political organization.

  20 Sow the useful: an inexact quotation from Nekrasov’s poem ‘To the Sowers’ (Seyatelyam, 1876).

  21 a mystical anarchist: the doctrine of ‘mystical anarchism’ was developed by the writer Georgii Chulkov in his book On Mystical Anarchism (1906), and had a certain following among the Russian Symbolists, though Bely was firmly opposed to it, seeing in it a ‘profanation’ of Symbolist tenets.

  22 Tam: a ‘musical’ exclamation – but the word also means ‘there’ in Russian.

  23 Gazing at the rays of purple sunset: a romance by the composer A.A. Oppel, to words by Kozlov. In the original, the second line reads ‘We stood upon the bank of the Neva.’

  24 The Queen of Spades: Tchaikovsky’s opera, based on Pushkin’s short story, with its hero, Hermann.

  25 the Code of Laws: The Code of Laws of the Russian Empire, a systematic code of pre-1917 Russian law, published in sixteen volumes.

  26 tabes dorsalis: a form of neurosyphilis, affecting the spinal cord.

  CHAPTER THE FOURTH

  1 Grant God that I may not go mad: the epigraph is the first line of an untitled poem by Pushkin (1833) that was never published in the poet’s lifetime.

  2 a statue by Irelli: there is no suc
h statue in the Summer Garden. Bely may have inadvertently written Irelli instead of Rastrelli – whose equestrian statue of Peter the Great (1743–4) is to be found on Horse Stable Square, near the main entrance of Mikhailovsky Palace.

  3 Maison Tricotons: possibly the ladies’ fashion shop, Maison Annette, at No 25 Nevsky Prospect.

  4 Krafft’s: Krafft’s chocolate factory was situated at No 10/5 Italyanskaya Ulitsa.

  5 Ballet’s: a confectioner’s shop at No 54 Nevsky Prospect.

  6 rust-red palace: the Winter Palace in Petersburg, built 1750–61. The palace’s original blue-white tint was replaced in the nineteenth century by a dark brown one.

  7 Yelizaveta Petrovna: daughter of Peter the Great, Empress Elizabeth of Russia (1741–61).

  8 Aleksandr Pavlovich: Tsar Alexander I (1801–25).

  9 Aleksandr Nikolayevich: Tsar Alexander II (1855–81).

  10 zemstvo official: a zemstvo was an elective district council in pre-1917 Russia.

  11 the editor of a conservative newspaper, the liberal son of a priest: apparently a reference to the essayist, writer and publisher Aleksei Sergeyevich Suvorin (1834–1912).

  12 Charleston: Charleston, Virginia, USA, where an influential Masonic lodge was based. Its head was called the ‘antipope’. The reference here is to Léo Taxil (see note 17).

  13 liberal professor: the ‘professor of statistics’ is, by Bely’s own admission, a caricature of the Constitutional Democrat politician Peter Struve, though in his memoirs Bely claimed that he had not consciously intended to reproduce Struve’s features.

  14 the Boxers in China: a reference to the Boxer rebellion of 1900, a revolt by the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists, encouraged by the Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi against foreign domination.

  15 Who art thou: this quartrain, like the entire scene being described, is closely connected with Bely’s poems ‘Masquerade’ (Maskarad, 1908) and ‘The Festival’ (Prazdnik, 1908), which depict the appearance of a fateful red domino at a festive masquerade.

  16 a rustling stream of confetti: Bely appears to have confused konfetti (confetti) with serpentin (paper streamers).

  17 Taxil: Léo Taxil, a French anticlerical writer; his real name was Gabriel Antoine Jogand-Pagès (1854–1907). He ‘exposed’ devil-worship among the Freemasons, but later confessed that his activities had been a hoax.

  18 Palladism: the highest circle of Freemasonry, and supposedly also of devil-worship.

  19 terrible vengeance: an allusion to Gogol’s story of the same name.

  20 like a sheaf of ripe grain: this entire passage presents an image of the white domino as a symbol of Christ, standing in opposition both to political terror (the red domino) and to autocracy (the Bronze Horseman).

  21 Vanka: a familiar name for a cab driver (short for Ivan).

  22 And the light did not shine: there are overtones here of the Gospel according to St John (1:5).

  23 Word and deed!: this expression meant, from the fourteenth century until the reign of Catherine II, that the person who uttered it had an important matter to relate concerning a person of state. Thereupon he became involved, as an informer, in the investigation of a political plot by the Secret Chancellery.

  24 From Finland’s icy cliffs to fiery Colchis: a quotation from Pushkin’s poem ‘To the Slanderers of Russia’ (Klevetnikam Rossii, 1831).

  25 It’s time, my friend: the words are loosely taken from Pushkin’s poem of the same title (1831).

  CHAPTER THE FIFTH

  1 When morning and its star doth gleam: the epigraph is taken from Pushkin’s verse novel Eugene Onegin (Chapter 6, Lensky’s poem), with a slight alteration in line 3.

  2 Aa-ba-a-ate un-re-est of the paa-aassions: the words are from Glinka’s romance ‘Doubt’ (Somnenie, 1838), and form a leitmotif in Bely’s ‘Fourth Symphony’.

  3 Allasch: a clear spirit flavoured with thyme.

  4 Oh, do not suppose that those ties … shedding of blood: there is an evident allusion here to the conversations between Raskolnikov and the investigator Porfiry Petrovich in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment – one of the many instances in Petersburg where Bely invokes that novel.

  5 Illegitimate … seamstress: there is perhaps a hint here of Part IV, Book 11, Chapter 8 of Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, where Smerdyakov tells Ivan about the murder.

  6 Colours of a fiery hue: the verses are Bely’s own.

  7 a lawless comet: an echo of a line from Pushkin’s poem ‘The Portrait’ (Portret, 1828).

  8 arshin, vershoks: 1 arshin was equal to 0.71 metres, 1 vershok was equal to 4.4 centimetres.

  9 petit-jeu: parlour games – charades, forfeits, epigrams, et cetera.

  10 Karolina Karlovna: the name of Bely’s first nursery-governess, who spoke German, and looked after him in January 1884.

  11 the logic of Dharmakirti with a commentary by Dharmottara: Dharmakirti was a seventh-century Indian philosopher, and Dharmottara a ninth-century one. Bely read Dharmakirti in the Russian translation of F.I. Shcherbatskoy, published by the Academy of Sciences in 1904.

  12 a Chronic aspect: a pun on chronic and Chronos.

  13 Turanian: Turanians were non-Semitic and non-Aryan nomads who supposedly came to Europe and Asia before the Aryans. Rudolf Steiner believed that logic was invented during the supremacy of the Turanians and Mongols.

  14 Saturn: according to Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophical teaching, the first stage in the evolution of the cosmos.

  15 bogdykhan: the traditional Russian name (derived from Mongolian bogdokhan) for the Chinese emperors.

  CHAPTER THE SIXTH

  1 Behind him always: the epigraph is taken from Pushkin’s The Bronze Horseman (V, 148).

  2 insect powder: in Russian, persidskiy poroshok, literally ‘Persian powder’. The ‘Persian’ theme is established here.

  3 Serafim of Sarov: an elder at the Orthodox monastery of Sarov who lived from 1760 to 1833. He imposed penances of awesome severity on himself, once standing for a thousand nights in continuous prayer.

  4 on the corner of Anichkov Bridge: a reference to the sculpted groups of young men with horses that adorn the Anichkov Bridge in St Petersburg.

  5 credit bill: i.e. a banknote.

  6 Potapenko: Ignaty Nikolayevich Potapenko (1856–1928), a belle-lettriste and playwright who was popular in the Russia of the 1880s and 1890s. In 1905 he produced a play called The New Life.

  7 Shemakha: a city in Azerbaijan.

  8 Young Persian: this group does not seem to have existed as such. Bely invents it on the model of ‘Young Turks’, to denote the supporters of constitutional reform in Persia.

  9 In fear of God and in faith proceed: words proclaimed by the deacon during the Orthodox liturgy.

  10 if one had raised their lids: a reference to Gogol’s story ‘Viy’, and the monster’s long eyelids.

  11 Some girls: these verses, like the ones that follow it, are entirely Bely’s own creation – they are modelled on the Russian chastushka, a relatively modern form of humorous folk song.

  12 in a Helsingfors coffee house: the images of Dudkin’s hallucination stem partly from the real-life mental illness of Bely’s friend and acquaintance S.M. Solovyov in 1911. On 26 November 1911 Bely wrote to Blok: ‘… all that you write to me in veiled hints is more than familiar: the yellow fascination: succumb to it and – the motor car, the Tartars, the Japanese visitors, and also – Finland, or “something” that is in Finland, also – Helsingfors, Azev, the revolution – it is all the same gamut of emotions … What happened to Seryozha has affected me dreadfully, for two weeks I have suffered with Seryozha: for one of the ideas that now persecutes him is the face of an Oriental.’

  13 Apachés: Paris thugs and hooligans who took part in street demonstrations.

  14 St Basil the Great’s prayer, the admonitory one, to devils: what is intended here is an allusion to the ‘Prayer of Exorcism for those Suffering from Devils’ in the Russian Orthodox Trebnik, or ‘Prayer Book’
. There appears, however, to be a confusion with the subtitle of Vladimir Solovyov’s poem of 1898, ‘An Admonitory Word to Sea Devils’ (Das Ewig-Weibliche).

  15 Dr Inozemtsev’s drops: an opium-based infusion used as a painkiller in the treatment of intestinal diseases, and proposed by the Russian physician F.I. Inozemtsev (1802–69) as a treatment for cholera.

  16 Enfranshish: a number of explanations have been offered for the wordplay surrounding this verbal hallucination, which gives rise to the ‘Persian’ name Shishnarfne, in particular that it is derived from the French words ‘En franchise’ written on the containers of a brand of insect (‘Persian’) powder sold in Russia before 1917. There is also an obvious connection with the Russian word shish, meaning fig (as in not a fig), or nose (as in pokazat’ shish, to pull a long nose). Bely himself compared the Enfranshish episode with Gogol’s story ‘The Portrait’, in which a sinister figure leaps out of a portrait in order to put an end to the hero, Chartkov.

  17 Yevgeny’s fate: Yevgeny is the hero of Pushkin’s The Bronze Horseman.

  18 Petro Primo Catharina Secunda: the Latin inscription on the Finnish granite base of the Bronze Horseman statue.

  CHAPTER THE SEVENTH

  1 Weary am I, friend: the epigraph is taken from Pushkin’s poem ‘It’s time, my friend, it’s time! The heart asks peace’ (Pora, moi drug, pora! pokoya serdtse prosit, 1834). The first line has been altered by Bely.

  2 Gaurisankars: Gaurisankar is a Himalayan mountain situated near Mount Everest. Until 1913 it was erroneously believed to be the same mountain as Everest, and therefore the highest in the chain.

  3 Nokkert: the real name of Bely’s governess from 1886 to 1887.

  4 Acathistus: in the Orthodox Church, a hymn of praise to Jesus Christ, the Mother of God and the Saints, performed by the congregation standing up.

  5 Section marks: the typographical sign ¶ – in Russian, its name is paragraf, or paragraph.

  6 Konshin: Aleksei Vladimirovich Konshin, director of the Russian State Bank; his signature was reproduced on Russian banknotes.