Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls

The Order of St. Anna (i.e., St. Anne, mother of the Virgin) had two degrees, one worn on the neck, the other on the breast. The star was the decoration of the Order of St. Stanislas, a Polish civil order founded in 1792, which began to be awarded in Russia in 1831.

A tax farmer was a private person authorized by the government to collect various taxes in exchange for a fixed fee. The practice was obviously open to abuse, and it was abolished by the reforms of the emperor Alexander II in the 1860s.

Russians sometimes affected the uvular French r when speaking their own language, thinking it a sign of gentility.

The Son of the Fatherland was a reactionary political and literary review published in Petersburg between 1812 and 1852.

Pavel Petrovich is the emperor Paul I (1754-1801), son of Peter III (1728-62), whose life was cut short by the machinations of his wife, who thus became the empress Catherine II, called the Great (1729-96). Paul I also came to an untimely end, at the hands of conspirators headed by Count Pahlen. Marshal Mikhail Illarion-ovich Kutuzov (1745-1813), prince of Smolensk, after losing to Napoleon at the battle of Austerlitz in 1805, successfully led the defense of Russia against the French invasion of 1812.

The six-week Advent fast leading up to Christmas is sometimes called St. Philip's fast, because it begins on the day after the saint's feast day (November 14).

Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary), close to the German border in what is now the Czech Republic, is known for its salutary hot springs. The Caucasus also has hot springs, mineral waters, and mountain air.

Clicquot is the name of one of the finest champagnes. Nozdryov uses it in lowercase as an adjective, and combines it superlatively but absurdly with matradura, the name of an old Russian dance. Plebeian kvass is made from fermented rye bread and malt.

A balyk is made from a special dorsal section of flesh running the entire length of a salmon or sturgeon, which is removed in one piece and either salted or smoked. It is especially fancied in Russia.

Opodeldoc (originally oppodeltoch) was the name given by the Swiss alchemist and physician Theophrastus Bombastus von Ho-henheim, known as Paracelsus (1493—1541), to various medicinal plasters; it is now applied to soap liniments mixed with alcohol and camphor. Nozdryov applies it to Chichikov in a far-fetched pun on delo, the Russian word for "deal." Hence our spelling.

Fenardi was an actual street acrobat and conjurer, well known in the 1820s.

Sophron is a Greek common noun meaning a wise, sensible, intelligent person.

The popular French song "Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre" expressed the pleasure the French took in the misfortunes of John Churchill, duke of Marlborough (1650-1722), who led the English forces in the War of the Spanish Succession in the Low Countries. The duke's name is variously misspelled in French transcriptions as "Malbrough," "Malborough," and even "Malbrouk."

Nozdryov probably means haut sauternes, a nonexistent variety of the great sweet white wines of Bordeaux. Alexander Suvorov (1729-1800), the greatest Russian general of his time, successfully led Russian forces against the Turks at Iz-mayil, put down the Polish insurrection in 1794, and led the opposition to the French revolutionary armies until he was stopped by Maréchal Masséna at Zurich in 1799.

Alexander Suvorov (1729-1800), the greatest Russian general of his time, successfully led Russian forces against the Turks at Iz-mayil, put down the Polish insurrection in 1794, and led the opposition to the French revolutionary armies until he was stopped by Maréchal Masséna at Zurich in 1799.

Colonies of soldier-farmers were first created by the emperor Alexander I (1777-1825), and were placed mainly in Ukraine. The empress Catherine II began the inviting of German settlers to Russia, particularly to the province of Saratov.

Mikhailo, or Mikhail—Misha or Mishka in the diminutive— is the common Russian name for a bear.

Alexander Mavrocordato (1791-1865), a Greek statesman born in Constantinople, and the admirals Andreas Vokos Miaoulis (1768-1835) and Constantine Canaris (1790-1877) all distinguished themselves in the Greek war of independence (1821-28). Bobelina, an Albanian woman, outfitted three ships at her own expense and fought on the Greek side in the same war. Prince Pyotr Bagration (1765—1812), a Russian general born in Georgia, was a leader of the opposition to Napoleon's invasion and was mortally wounded at the battle of Borodino.

In Ezekiel (38:2, 3, 18; 39:11, 15) Gog is named as prince of Meshech and Tubal, in some unclear relation with "the land of Magog." In Revelation (20:8) Gog and Magog are called "the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth." But in the popular mind, the rhyming names suggest two evil monsters.

Russians (and others) have a custom of making the sign of the cross over their mouths when they yawn, to keep evil spirits from flying in.

Koshchey the Deathless is a wicked character from Russian folktales. The hero of the tales must cross the sea, come to an island, find an oak tree, dig up a chest under the oak tree, find in the chest a hare, in the hare a duck, in the duck an egg, and in the egg a needle. When the hero breaks off the point of the needle, Koshchey dies.

Theodoras Colocotronis (1770-1843), a Greek general, was another hero of the Greek war of independence.

The line "caw itself away at the top of its crow's voice" flew here from the fable The Crow and the Fox, by Ivan Krylov (1769-1844). It is proverbial in Russia.

Napoleon, at the head of a 500,000-man army, invaded Russia in 1812. At the end of the same year, he managed to retreat with only a few thousand troops. Later in Dead Souls these events will be referred to simply as "the year 'twelve."

Rus was the old name for Russia, before Rossiya came into use in the sixteenth century. In the nineteenth century, Rus began to be used again, especially in romantic apostrophes to the fatherland. It is in this sense, or in an ironic parody of it, that Gogol uses the word.

A kulich is a rich, sweet yeast bread, generally cylindrical in form, baked especially for Easter.

The different denominations of Russian banknotes were given different colors; red was the color of the ten-rouble bill.

Johann Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805), German romantic idealist poet and playwright, profoundly influenced Russian literature and thought in the early nineteenth century.

A zertsalo was a small three-faced glass pyramid bearing an eagle and certain edicts of the emperor Peter the Great (1682-1725), which stood on the desk in every government office.

The "Komarinsky" is a Russian dance song with rather racy words, which Gogol replaces here with the Russian equivalent of "blankety-blank."