Novels, Tales, Journeys

42. Count Samoilov: Nikolai Andreevich Samoilov (1800–1842), an officer in the Preobrazhensky regiment, was the cousin of the younger Raevskys (see note 4 above).

43. titular councilors…assessor: In the ascending order of the Russian table of ranks (see note 3 to “The Stationmaster”), titular councilor was ninth, equivalent to captain, and collegiate assessor was eighth, equivalent to major. In his story “The Nose” (1836), Pushkin’s young friend Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852) speaks of “collegiate assessors who are made in the Caucasus,” meaning made quickly.

44. General Sipyagin: Nikolai Martyanovich Sipyagin (1785–1828) was the military governor of Tiflis before his sudden death.

45. General Strekalov: Stepan Stepanovich Strekalov (1782–1856), who took over as military governor of Tiflis in 1828, arranged with the authorities to keep Pushkin under surveillance while he was in the city.

46. the slain Griboedov: See note 7 to “The Blizzard” and note 34 above. The Georgian drivers’ distortion of the name, “Griboed,” means “Mushroom-eater.” They of course had no idea who Griboedov was.

47. Buturlin: Nikolai Alexandrovich Buturlin (1801–1867), aide-de-camp to the Russian minister of war, Alexander Ivanovich Chernyshev (1786–1857), was sent to keep an eye on former Decembrists in the Caucasus, including Pushkin and Raevsky, and delivered a detailed report on them when he returned to Petersburg in 1829.

48. a poem to a Kalmyk girl…: Verses Pushkin jotted down on the occasion of his meeting with the “Circe of the steppe” described early in chapter 1:

The Kalmyk Girl

Farewell, my dear Kalmyk girl!

Thwarting all my plans,

Drawn on by my laudable habit,

I almost followed your kibitka

Off into the steppe.

Your eyes, of course, are narrow,

Your nose flat, your brow wide,

You do not babble in French,

Your legs are not squeezed into silk,

You do not crumble your bread

English-style by the samovar,

You do not admire Saint-Mars,

Give little value to Shakespeare,

Do not fall into reverie,

Since there’s not a thought in your head,

You do not sing: Ma dov’é,

Do not leap in the galop at dances.

Who cares? For a whole half-hour,

While they were hitching my horses,

My mind and heart were taken

With your gaze and your savage beauty.

Friends, is it not all one

For your idle soul to be lost

In a splendid hall, the dress circle,

Or in a nomadic kibitka?

49. General Burtsov: Ivan Grigorievich Burtsov (1794–1829) took part in the Napoleonic Wars and was then involved in the early stages of the Decembrist movement, but withdrew before the uprising. Imprisoned for six months all the same, he was then transferred to the Caucasus, where he served with distinction in the wars with the Persians and the Turks and was killed in action. Pushkin had made Burtsov’s acquaintance years earlier, while he was still at the lycée in Tsarskoe Selo (see note 41 to The Captain’s Daughter).

50. our Volkhovsky: Vladimir Dmitrievich Volkhovsky (1798–1841), Pushkin’s fellow student at the lycée, joined the Decembrists and as a result was sent in 1826 to serve on Paskevich’s staff in the Caucasus.

51. Mikhail Pushchin: Mikhail Ivanovich Pushchin (1800–1869), brother of one of Pushkin’s closest friends at the lycée, and like his brother a Decembrist, was broken to the ranks in 1826 and sent to serve in the Caucasus. By the time of their meeting in Tiflis, he had been made an officer again and served with the army engineers.

52. Semichev: Nikolai Nikolaevich Semichev (1792–1830), also a Decembrist. After six months in prison, he was sent to the Caucasus as a captain in the Nizhegorodsky grenadier regiment. At one point, when Pushkin recklessly threw himself into combat, General Raevsky sent Semichev to drag him away from the front line.

53. young Osten-Sacken: A captain of the Nizhegorodsky grenadiers, the younger brother of Dmitry Erofeevich Osten-Sacken (1789–1881), who at that time was chief of staff of the Detached Caucasus Corps under Paskevich. The Osten-Sackens were a distinguished Baltic German family.

54. Yazidis…devil worshippers: The Yazidis are Kurdish-speaking people settled from ancient times in what is now northern Iraq. Their monotheistic religion has ties to Zoroastrianism; its somewhat Manichaean vision of good and evil has led other monotheists to persecute them wrongly as “devil worshippers.”