Dead Souls

A Greek name, which Gogol finally settled on after using the odd hybrids Skudronzhoglo and Gobrozhoglo in earlier redactions. Although this character represents Gogol's attempt to portray the ideal landowner, uniting the best qualities of two great Orthodox nations, he seems to have been at pains to give him a name that has a particularly ugly sound in Russian.

62

A sibirka is a short caftan with a fitted waist and gathered skirts, often trimmed with fur, having a seamless back, small buttons or clasps in front, and a short standing collar.

63

Kostanzhoglo paraphrases Genesis 3:19, which reads: 'In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread' (Revised Standard Version).

64

Krylov's fable Trishkds Caftan, describing the patching process that Gogol uses metaphorically here, became proverbial in Russia.

65

A molieben (pronounced 'molYEHben') is an Orthodox prayer service for any occasion, from the blessing of a new beehive to petitioning for a sick person's recovery.

66

There is a Russian custom of commemorating the dead on the Tuesday after St. Thomas's Sunday (the first Sunday after Easter).

The celebration is called Krasnaya Gorka ('Pretty Hill'), probably because the graves (little hills) are prettily decorated for the occasion. The accompanying festivities required more space than a village cemetery would afford.

67

Navarino, or Pylos, is a Greek port in the southwest Peloponnesus on the Ionian Sea where, in 1827, the joint naval forces of Russia, England, and France destroyed the Turkish fleet.

68

The Old Believers, called Raskolniki ('schismatics') in Russian, split off from the Orthodox Church in the mid-seventeenth century, in disagreement with reforms carried out by the patriarch Nikon. Some sects of the Old Believers refused obedience to the civil authorities, claiming that they, like the Church, were under the sway of the Antichrist.

69

Voronoy-Dryannoy is a highly implausible last name combining 'raven-black' and 'trashy.'

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Richard Pevear has published translations of Alain, Yves Bonnefoy, Alberto Savinio, Pavel Florensky, and Henri Volohonsky, as well as two books of poetry. He has received fellowships or grants for translation from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the French Ministry of Culture. Larissa Volokhonsky was born in Leningrad. She has translated works by the prominent Orthodox theologians Alexander Schmemann and John Meyendorff into Russian. Together, Pevear and Volokhonsky have translated The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground, and Demons, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. They were awarded the PEN Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize for their version of The Brothers Karamazov, and more recently Demons was one of three nominees for the same prize. They are married and live in France.

I

The end of the chapter is missing. In the first edition of the second volume of Dead Souls (1855), there was a note: 'Here omitted is the reconciliation of Betrishchev and Tentetnikov; the dinner at the general's and their conversation about the year 'twelve; the betrothal of Ulinka and Tentetnikov; her prayer and lament on her mother's grave; the conversation of the betrothed couple in the garden. Chichikov sets out, at General Betrishchev's request, to call on his relatives and to inform them of his daughter's betrothal, and he goes to see one of these relations— Colonel Koshkarev.'—Trans.

II

Four illegible words in Gogol's manuscript.—Trans.