Lectures on Russian literature

No. 29 Kitty's education

Though high schools for women began to come into existence as early as 1859, a noble family of the Shcherbatski type would either send their daughters to one of the 'Institutes for Young Noblewomen,' that dated back to the eighteenth century, or have them educated at home by governesses and visiting teachers. The programme would consist of a thorough study of French (language and literature), dancing, music, drawing. In many families, especially in St. Petersburg and Moscow, English would run a close second to French.

A young woman of Kitty's set would never go out-of-doors unattended either by a governess or by her mother or by both.

She would be seen walking only at a certain fashionable hour on a certain fashionable boulevard, and on these occasions a footman would be following a few steps behind—both for protection and prestige.

No. 30 Lyovin

Tolstoy wrote 'Levin,' deriving the surname of this character (a Russian nobleman and the representative of a young Tolstoy in the imaginary world of the novel) from his own first name 'Lev' (Russian for 'Leo'). Alphabetically the Russian 'e'

is pronounced 'ye' (as in 'yes')> but in a number of instances it may have the sound of 'yo' (as in 'yonder'). Tolstoy pronounced his first name (spelled 'Lev' in Russian) as 'Lyov' instead of the usual 'Lyev.' I write 'Lyovin' instead of 'Levin,'

not so much to avoid any confusion (the possibility of which Tolstoy apparently did not realize) with a widespread Jewish surname of a different derivation, as to stress the emotional and personal quality of Tolstoy's choice (p.21).

Lvov

In giving to Nathalie Shcherbatski's husband, a diplomat with extremely sophisticated manners, the surname Lvov, Tolstoy used a common derivative from 'Lev' as if to point out another side of his, Tolstoy's, personality in his youth, namely the desire to be absolutely comme il faut.

No. 31 Oblonski was on familiar terms

Russians (as well as the French and the Gemans) when addressing intimates use the singular 'thou' (French tu, Germane) instead of 'you.' This isty in Russian, the 'y' being pronounced somewhat as 'u' in 'tug.' Although generally speaking the ty would go with the use of the interlocutor's first name, a combination of ty with the surname, or even with first name and patronymic, occurs not infrequently (p.22).

No. 32 An active member of the zemstvo, a new type of man in this respect

The zemstvos (created by a government act of January 1, 1864) were district and provincial assemblies with councils elected by three groups: landowners, peasants, and townspeople. Lyovin had been at first an eager supporter of these administrative boards but now objected to them on the grounds that landowner members were steering their needier friends into various lucrative positions (p.23).

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No. 33 New suit

According to fashion plates of the time, Lyovin probably wore a well-cut short coat ('sack coat') with a braid edge, and then changed into a frock coat for his evening visit to the Shcherbatskis (p.24).

No. 34 Gurin

A merchant name implying a good but not smart restaurant, adequate for a friendly lunch around the corner (p.24).

No. 35 Eight thousand acres in the Karazinski district

The allusion is clearly to a district in the Province of Tula (further disguised as 'Kashin'), Central Russia, south of Moscow, where Tolstoy possessed a considerable amount of land himself. A 'province' (or 'government,' guber-niya) consisted of districts (uezdy), and this one consisted of twelve such districts. Tolstoy invented 'Karazinski,' fancifully deriving it from Karazin (the name of a famous social reformer, 1773-1842), and combining Krapivenski District, where his own estate, Yasnaya Poly ana, was situated (about eight miles from Tula on the Moscow-Kursk line), with the name of a neighboring village (Karamyshevo) (p.26). Lyovin had also land in the 'Selez-nyovski' district of the same ('Kashin') province.

No. 36 Zoological Garden

Tolstoy has in view a skating rink on the Presnenski Pond or some part of it, just south of the Zoo, in the north-west corner of Moscow (p.26).

No. 37 Red stockings

According to my source (Mode in Costume, by R. Turner Wilcox, New York, 1948, p. 308) purple and red in petticoats and stockings were great favorites with Parisian young ladies around 1870—and fashionable Moscow, of course, followed Paris. The shoe in Kitty's case would probably be a buttoned bottine of fabric or leather (p.28).

No. 38 A very important philosophical question

Tolstoy did not bother to go very far for a suitable subject. Problems of mind versus matter are still discussed all over the world; but the actual question as defined by Tolstoy was by 1870 such an old and obvious one, and is stated here in such general terms, that it hardly seems likely a professor of philosophy would travel all the way (over 300 miles) from Kharkov to Moscow to thrash it out with another scholar (p.30).

No. 39 Keiss, Wurst, Knaust, Pripasov

Although according to the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (Leipzig, 1882), there was a German educator Raimond Jacob Wurst (1800-1845) and a sixteenth-century song-maker Heinrich Knaust (or Knaustinus), I can find no Keiss, let alone Pripasov, and prefer to think that Tolstoy wittily invented wholesale that string of materialistic philosophers with—in plausible percentage—one Russian name in the wake of three German ones (P-31).

No. 40 The skating ground

Ever since the beginning of history, when the first skates were fashioned from the cannon bone of a horse, boys and young men used to play on the ice of frozen rivers and fens. The sport was extremely popular in old Russia, and by 1870 had become fashionable for both sexes. Club-skates of steel, round-toed or pointed, were strapped to the shoe and kept firm by clamps, spikes, or screws that entered the sole. This was before the time that special skating-boots, with skates permanently fixed to them, were used by good skaters (p.34).

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No. 41 The old curly birches of the garden, with all their branches weighed down by snow, seemed decked in new festive vestments

As previously noted, Tolstoy's style, while freely allowing the utilitarian ('parabolic') comparison, is singularly devoid of poetical similes or metaphors intended to appeal primarily to the artistic sense of the reader. These birch-trees (with the

'sun' and 'wild rose' comparisons further) are an exception. They will presently cast a few spicules of their festive frost onto the fur of Kitty's muff (p.35).

It is curious to compare Lyovin's awareness of these emblematic trees here, at the commencement of his courtship, with certain other old birches (to be first mentioned by his brother Nikolay), that are worried by a crucial summer storm in the last part of the book.

No. 42 Behind chairs

A beginner might toddle along in his awkward skates

clinging to the back of a chair painted green, on wooden

runners, and in these same chairs ladies might be driven

around by a friend or paid attendant (p.35).

No. 43 Russian garb

This lad, a gentleman's son, wears for skating the winter