A Russian Gentleman by S. T. Aksakov
Chapter 1 No.1
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TO J. F. D.
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TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
Serge Aksakoff,1 the author of this Russian classic, was born at Ufa, in the district of Orenburg, on September 20, 1791. His father held some office in the law-court of the town, and his grandfather lived in the country as the owner of large estates, to which Aksakoff ultimately succeeded. His grandfather had migrated about 1760 from Simbirsk to Ufa, where the population consisted mainly of Tatars and a number of Finnish tribes-Mordvinians, Choovashes, and others.
Aksakoff was educated at Kazan, and entered the Civil Service in 1808. After serving in many different capacities-he was censor of the Press at Moscow for some years-he retired in 1839 and devoted himself exclusively to literature. He married in 1816; and his two sons, Constantine and Ivan, both played a conspicuous part in the public life of Russia. He died at Moscow, after a long and painful illness, on April 30, 1859.
His high and secure place among Russian writers Aksakoff owes to three works-his Years of Childhood and Recollections, which are autobiography, and his Family History, which is here translated under the title of A Russian Gentleman. This is his most famous work: his portrait of his grandfather is his masterpiece, and his descriptions of his parents' courtship and marriage are as vivid and minute as his pictures of his own early childhood.
He began to write this book soon after his retirement from the public service. Portions of it were published in a Moscow magazine in 1846; and the whole work appeared, with the addition of a short Epilogue, in 1856. He published Recollections in the same volume; and Years of Childhood-which should have preceded Recollections-followed in 1858, the last year of his life.
A Russian Gentleman seems a suitable title for this book, because the whole scene, in which a multitude of characters appear, is entirely dominated and permeated by the tremendous personality of Aksakoff's grandfather, Stepan Mihailovitch. Plain and rough in his appearance and habits, but proud of his long descent; hardly able to read or write, but full of natural intelligence; capable of furious anger and extreme violence in his anger, but equally capable of steadfast and even chivalrous affection; a born leader of men and the very incarnation of truth, honour, and honesty-Stepan Mihailovitch is more like a Homeric hero than a man of modern times.
The reader, when he reflects that Aksakoff's present narrative ends with the day of his own birth, will be inclined to think that the author must have had a lively imagination. I therefore translate the sentence with which Skabichevsky, a critic of reputation, begins his review of Aksakoff's work:-
"Aksakoff's books are remarkable, first of all, on this ground: you will find in them no trace of creative or inventive power."
I suppose myself that he derived his information chiefly from his mother; but there are certainly scenes in the book which he cannot have owed to this source.
This translation has been made from the Moscow edition of 1900. I should say here: (1) that I have abridged some of the topographical detail at the beginning of the book; (2) that I have dealt freely with the Notes which Aksakoff added, sometimes promoting them to the text, and sometimes omitting them wholly or in part. I know of two previous translations. A German translation, Russische Familienchronik, by Sergius Raczynski, was published at Leipzig in 1858. This seems to me a good translation, and I have found it useful in some difficulties. An English translation "by a Russian Lady" was published at Calcutta in 1871; and there is a copy in the British Museum. I have not seen this; but I have heard that it is inadequate, and the first few sentences, which were copied out for me, seem to bear this out.
I have completed a translation of Aksakoff's remaining book of Memoirs-his Recollections of school and college; and I hope that it may be published after a short interval.
J. D. DUFF.
Cambridge.
Jan. 11, 1917.
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CONTENTS
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
FRAGMENT I: STEPAN MIHAILOVITCH BAGROFF 1. The Migration