The friend of the family, p.29
The Friend of the Family,
p.29
Page 165: Mizinchikov. From mizinets, Russian for the little finger or toe. The name conjures up the image of a diminutive but perky individual.
Page 171: I set the fashion, like Burtsov … Aleksey Petrovich Burtsov (died in 1813) was an officer in the hussars, famous for his revelry and merry-making. The poet Denis Davydov immortalized him.
Page 185: first you wanted to be called simply “The Faithful” — “Grigory the Faithful”; then … some damned fool turned it into “Disgraceful”. A possible reference to the famous informer against the Decembrist Movement, Ivan Vasilyevich Sherwood. Sherwood, the son of an English engineer, was brought to Russia at the age of two. In adulthood he served in the army and was able to procure for the authorities evidence of a major conspiracy. In recognition of his ‘service’ Nicholas I awarded him the title of ‘Faithful’ and he came to be called Sherwood the Faithful. In society, however, where his role was well known, his new title was soon changed to Sherwood the Disgraceful.
Pages 185–6: Now tell me, my friend, what could be more ridiculous than Ulanovs? Ulanov is a common Russian surname derived from uhlan, a light cavalryman. For Rostanev, himself a former hussar, the idea of the effeminate Vidoplyasov being called ‘Ulanov’ is quite ridiculous.
Page 186: Bolvanov … Derived from bolvan, Russian for a hatter’s dummy, hence numskull.
Page 229: the beginning of an historical novel depicting life in seventh-century Novgorod … A reflection on Foma the scholar — Novgorod was founded in the ninth century.
Page 229: a dreadful poem, ‘Anchoret at the Graveyard’, written in blank verse … The title parodies early nineteenth-century mystico-philosophic poems written predominantly in blank verse.
Pages 229–30: an absurd discourse on the significance and character of the Russian muzhik and how to handle him … A parody on Gogol’s ‘Russian landowner’ in Selected Passages, on N. M. Karamzin’s ‘Letter from a Villager’ (1803), as well as on ‘Testament to my Peasants or a Moral Homily to them’ by A. S. Shishkov (1843).
Page 230: a tale of society life, ‘Countess Vlonskaya’ … The society novel was a popular genre in the 1830s to ’50s. Cf. A. P. Glinka’s tale Countess Polina.
Page 230: Paul de Kock … Contemporary French novelist. Russian conservative critics of the 1840s regarded him as ‘obscene’.
Page 237: Mr Kuzma Prutkov wrote it … Kozma Prutkov was the collective pen-name of the writers A. K. Tolstoy and brothers A. M. and V. M. Zhemchuzhnikov during the period 1850–60. Kozma Prutkov is a fictitious, grotesquely humorous poet-bureaucrat with the mock-official title of Director of the Assay-House. He is self-opinionated, dull, but not ill-intentioned. ‘The Siege of Pamba’, an actual product of his pen, was published in the satirical supplement to the journal Sovremennik (The Contemporary) in 1854. In Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (1863) Dostoyevsky describes Kozma Prutkov as ‘a wonderful writer, the pride and joy of our time …’
Page 239: Take a broom, a shovel, a ladle, an oven-fork. A reference to A. N. Afanasyev’s article ‘The Pagano-religious Significance of the Slav’s Hut’, in which the author endowed the peasant’s hut and its contents with far-fetched mystical symbolism. Afanasyev’s article was frequently held up to ridicule in the press. Dostoyevsky himself wrote of it disparagingly in his article ‘Mr — bov and the Question of Art’. Just before the publication of The Village of Stepanchikovo in Krayevsky’s journal, Dostoyevsky wrote to his brother on 20 October 1859: ‘You remember Col. Rostanev’s pronouncements on literature, on journals, on the erudition of Otechestvennyye zapiski and so on. Here is an indispensable condition: not one line is to be omitted by Krayevsky from this conversation … Please insist on it. Make a special point.’
Page 242: You’re a landowner; you should sparkle like a diamond on your estates … Do not imagine … like the meanest of his peasants! Cf. Gogol’s homiletic instructions to the Russian landowner in Selected Passages: ‘Get on with the work of the landowner as one ought in the true and righteous sense … God will call you to account should you abandon this calling in preference to another, for each and every one must serve God according to his own station … See to it that at the beginning of every task … you … join [the peasants] in their work and be their leader, exhorting them to do their best, praising the keen one and rebuking the lazy one … Take into your own hands the axe and the scythe …’
Page 257: I need no monuments of stone! Set me up a monument in your hearts … Ironic reference to Gogol’s statement in his ‘Testament’ in Selected Passages: ‘It is my will that there should be no monument standing over me, nobody should even think of such a folly, which is unworthy of a Christian. Those of my nearest to whom I have been truly dear, they will erect for me a different kind of monument …’
Page 259: “there lies but a hair’s breadth ’twixt innocence and peril” … Foma’s own vulgarized rendering of what would seem to be a line from the third sonnet of Petrarch’s Canzoniere.
Page 260: but not the “darkness” of which we hear in the famous romance … A popular sentimental romance of the time, ‘Hues of darkness, hues of gloom’. Its author is unknown.
Page 260: Turning again to Shakespeare … with a crocodile lurking at the bottom. This poetic image does not go back to Shakespeare but to Chateaubriand. In his novel Atala (1801), Chactas the Indian says: ‘The purest of hearts resembles a pool in the savannahs of Alachua; its surface is clear and calm, but when you gaze into its depths you see a crocodile.’
Page 268: let it be said that misfortune may be the mother of virtue — Gogol’s words … Cf. Gogol’s letter ‘Concerning Help for the Poor’ in Selected Passages: ‘misfortune mollifies a man; his nature then becomes more receptive to matters that are beyond the comprehension of one who remains in the usual, day-to-day state.’
Page 270: Like Diogenes with his lantern … The ancient Greek philosopher cynic was once observed walking in the street at noon with a lighted lantern in his hands and in reply to questions said: ‘I’m looking for a human being.’
Page 270: Should I love Falaley? Would I wish to love Falaley? Cf. Gogol’s lament in Selected Passages: ‘But how can one love one’s own brothers, how can one love people? The soul yearns for beauty, but people are so imperfect, and there is so little beauty in them!’
Page 270: the evil spirit Asmodeus … See Tobit, iii, 8.
Page 281: and even touched upon the Natural School … A literary movement initiated by the critic Vissarion Belinsky (1811–48) during the 1840s, which insisted that literature should be relevant to social questions, and show compassion for the least privileged in Russian society, the peasantry and the urban poor.
Page 281: ‘When from the darkness of depravity …’ A poem by N. A. Nekrasov published in 1846 in Otechestvennyye zapiski. Its theme of the spiritual rehabilitation of a fallen creature was very close to Dostoyevsky’s heart, and he used an extended extract from the poem as an epigraph to the second section of Notes from Underground.
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About the Authors
fyodor dostoyevsky (1821–1881) trained as an engineer and began his literary career with translations. As punishment for engaging in progressive political discussion, he was subjected to a mock execution and sent into exile in Siberia in his twenties. Subsequently he worked exclusively as a writer, touring Europe and publishing novels and journalism. Addicted to gambling, he was often near starvation. His second, very happy marriage to typist Anna Snitkina helped to stabilize his manner of living, and with her practical assistance he went on to write several masterpieces of psychological and existential fiction. Novels such as Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov and Notes from Underground have earned him a lasting reputation as one of the dominant figures of world literature.
ignat avsey (1938–2013) was born in Latvia to Russian parents, who relocated the family to Britain after the Second World War. He taught Russian language and literature at the University of Westminster. He translated several other works by Dostoyevsky, including The Karamazov Brothers and The Idiot, as well as Alexander Lernet-Holenia’s novel I Was Jack Mortimer, also published by Pushkin Press.
Copyright
Pushkin Press
Somerset House, Strand
London WC2R 1LA
English translation © Ignat Avsey, 1983
The Friend of the Family was first published as Selo Stepanchikovo i ego obitateli in serial form in Otechestvennye Zapiski in St Petersburg, 1859
First published in this translation by Angel Books in 1983
First published by Pushkin Press in 2026
eISBN 13: 978-1-80533-166-7
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems without prior permission in writing from Pushkin Press
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Friend of the Family
