One of the inferior village authorities. —A. D. ↩
Village commune. —A. D. ↩
A sazhén is about seven feet. —A. D. ↩
A poor quality of Russian tobacco. —A. D. ↩
Village policeman. —A. D. ↩
A local name for the formerly famous fairs in Kiev. —A. D. ↩
“Lady,” “madam,”—a word used in Poland and in the southwest of Russia. —A. D. ↩
“Gentlemen.” —A. D. ↩
Volynia, a province of Russia. —A. D. ↩
In Little Russia, high posts with old wheels fastened to the top are put up for the storks, and upon these the bird weaves its nest. —A. D. ↩
Diminutive of Peter. —A. D. ↩
Nickname for Little Russian. —A. D. ↩
Diminutive of Peter. —A. D. ↩
Diminutive of Peter. —A. D. ↩
A famous leader of Cossacks. —A. D. ↩
A corruption of Fèydor: Theodore. —A. D. ↩
The system of leasing estates is quite prevalent in the southeast of Russia. The lessee, known by the local term “possessor,” governs the estate. He pays a certain sum to the owners, and the income derived therefrom depends upon his own enterprise. —A. D. ↩
This wax taper is lighted during severe thunderstorms, and is also placed in the hands of dying people. —A. D. ↩
Blind people seldom have blind children. —A. D. ↩
Sleeveless coats. —A. D. ↩
A meditation in the form of a song. —A. D. ↩
Musical instrument, resembling a lute. —A. D. ↩
The author, evidently meant his Urmánov to be a Revolutionist, a “Nihilist,” a Russian patriot in a word. The Samoyédes are put in simply to mislead the censorship. —S. S. & W. W. ↩
The letters, given in the original in Church Slavonic, are omitted in the translation. —The Russian Review ↩
Mahorka: a very cheap smoking mixture made from the stems of tobacco. —M. F. ↩
Toyon: Chief. —M. F. ↩
The Polyesie (The Woods), a district in southwestern or Little Russia. —M. F. ↩
Bandura, an ancient oriental musical instrument of the lute family. —M. F. ↩
The Little Russians shave their heads bare, leaving only a long tuft of hair in the middle. —M. F. ↩
Gorelka: corn-whiskey. —M. F. ↩
An interwoven mass of the stems of herbaceous plants often met with on the steppes of Russia. —M. F. ↩
Ten days after the Jewish New Year, which is celebrated in the early Autumn, comes Yom Kippur, or the day of Purification, called by the peasants of Little Russia the “Day of Atonement.” A superstition exists among them that on this day the Jewish Devil Khapun (the Snatcher) carries off one Jew each year out of the Synagogue. This superstition probably had its origin in the extremely impressive ceremonies which the Jews carry out at this season with extraordinary zeal under the eyes of the Christian village population. —M. F. ↩
Kvass: a foamy, fermented drink, made of brown flour and hops. —M. F. ↩
Cakes. —C. M. ↩
Swamp Street. —C. M. ↩
Guards. —C. M. ↩
Colophon
Short Fiction
was compiled from short stories and novellas published between 1879 and 1900 by
Vladimir Korolenko.
They were translated from Russian between 1887 and 1919 by
Aline Delano, Sergius Stepniak, William Westall, Thomas Seltzer, Marian Fell, Clarence Manning and The Russian Review.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Robin Whittleton,
and is based on transcriptions produced between 2004 and 2020 by
George Kennan, David Starner, Keith M. Eckrich and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg (The Blind Musician, The Shades, A Phantasy and Birds of Heaven, and Other Stories)
and
Wikisource
and on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive (The Vagrant, and Other Stories, The Blind Musician, The Shades, a Phantasy, Makar’s Dream, and Other Stories and Birds of Heaven, and Other Stories)
and the
HathiTrust Digital Library.
The cover page is adapted from
The Forest in Winter,
a painting completed in 1883 by
Ivan Shishkin.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
July 16, 2020, 7:50 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/vladimir-korolenko/short-fiction/aline-delano_sergius-stepniak_william-westall_thomas-seltzer_the-russian-review_marian-fell_clarence-manning.
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