18. A. Raevsky: Alexander Nikolaevich Raevsky (1795–1868), the eldest son of General Nikolai Raevsky (see note 4 above), was a close friend of Pushkin’s and the model for his poem “The Demon” (1823).
19. Count Gudovich: Field Marshal Ivan Vasilyevich Gudovich (1741–1820) took part in the Russo-Turkish wars of 1768–1774, 1787–1791, and 1806–1812, in which his many victories gained him great distinction.
20. the peaceful Circassians: The Circassians, the last native people of the Caucasus to be subdued by the Russians (only in 1868), had been largely driven out of their territories in what amounted to a genocide. Those who remained were “peaceful” in name only.
21. Mansur…Solovki monastery: “Mansur” means “the victorious one.” His name was Ushurma. His birthdate is variously given as 1732, 1750, and 1760; he died in 1794. A Chechen sheikh and imam, he led a revolt against the Russian invasion of the Caucasus, was finally defeated in 1791, and was imprisoned for life in the Schlüsselburg Fortress near Petersburg. Some say he died in the monastery of Solovki, in the north of Russia.
22. …like a warrior…around him: Pushkin quotes in English from the poem “The Burial of John Moore” (1817), by the Irish poet and clergyman Charles Wolfe (1791–1823), which was much admired by Byron.
23. Stjernvall…North: The Finnish baron Carl Emil Knut Stjernvall-Walleen (1806–1890) was the brother-in-law of Count Musin-Pushkin (see note 14 above). The quotation is from Derzhavin’s poem “The Waterfall” (see note 10 to The Moor of Peter the Great and note 1 to “The Coffin-Maker”).
24. General Bekovich: Fyodor Alexandrovich Bekovich-Cherkassky (1790–1835), a prince of Kabardian origin, served as a Russian general in the Caucasus.
25. And in goatskins…delight: A line from Book III of the Iliad.
26. The Prisoner of the Caucasus: An early “Byronic” narrative poem by Pushkin, published in 1822.
27. one traveler writes: The traveler was Nikolai Alexandrovich Nefedev (1800–1860), whose book Notes During a Trip to the Caucasus and Georgia in 1827 was published under the initials N. N. in 1829.
28. The Rape of Ganymede: Rembrandt’s painting (1635) from the Dresden Gallery shows a great eagle flying off with a grimacing little boy who is peeing between his legs as he is carried aloft. Pushkin would have known the painting from engravings, which were very popular at the time.
29. Pliny’s testimony: The Roman historian Pliny the Elder (AD 23/24–79) discusses the names of mountain passes in Book V, chapter 27, of his Natural History in XXXVII Books.
30. Count J. Potocki…Spanish novels: The Polish count and military engineer Jan Potocki (1761–1815) wrote books on his travels to Astrakhan and the Caucasus, as well as to Turkey, Egypt, and Morocco, but his fame rests on his “Spanish” novel The Manuscript Found in Saragossa (1814), written in French.
31. Prince Kazbek…fugelman…Preobrazhensky regiment: Prince Kazbek is probably Gabriel Chopikashvili-Kazbegi, of the ruling family of the mountainous Kazbegi region in northeast Georgia, who remained loyal to Russia when the people of the region rebelled in the early nineteenth century. A fugelman (from the German flügelmann, “flank man” or “wing man”) was a well-trained soldier who was placed in front of a company at drill as a model for the others. For the Preobrazhensky regiment, see note 14 to The Moor of Peter the Great.
32. “holds up the heavenly vault”: A slightly altered quotation from the poem “A Half-Soldier” (1826), by Denis Davydov (see note 3 to “The Shot”).
33. Fazil Khan: Fazil Khan Sheyda (1784–1852), a Persian court poet and diplomat, was accompanying a diplomatic mission to Petersburg in 1829 when Pushkin met him. See following note.
34. Khozrev-Mirza: The young prince Khozrev-Mirza (1812–1878), grandson of the shah of Persia, led a mission to Petersburg to apologize for the destruction of the Russian ministry in Tehran and the murder of its minister plenipotentiary, the poet Alexander Griboedov (see note 7 to “The Blizzard”).
35. Rinaldo Rinaldini: See note 14 to Dubrovsky.
36. Kishinev: See note 2 to Kirdjali. The town had been under Ottoman rule since the sixteenth century.
37. Lalla Rookh: Pushkin quotes in English from the long poem Lalla Rookh: An Oriental Romance (1817), by the Irish poet Thomas Moore (1779–1852).
38. Sankovsky…Tsitsianov…: Pavel Stepanovich Sankovsky (1798–1832) edited the Tiflis Gazette, the first Russian-language newspaper in the Caucasus. He met Pushkin on his way to Arzrum and became his great admirer. The Georgian prince Pavel Dmitrievich Tsitsianov (1754–1806), the hot-headed Russian military commander of Georgia, was killed in action at the siege of Baku.
39. Aga Mohammed: Aga Mohammed (1742–1797) was shah of Persia from 1789 until his murder in 1797. He succeeded in reuniting the territories of the Caucasus that had broken away during the previous centuries, and was known for the unusual cruelty of his actions, especially in the taking of Tiflis. It was he who moved the Persian capital to Tehran.
40. poor Clarence…Malaga: Raphael Holinshed (1529–1580), in his Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1577), writes that the Duke of Clarence, the elder brother of Richard III, “was cast into the Tower, and therewith adjudged for a traitor, and privily drowned in a butt of malmsey.” Shakespeare included this detail in Richard III (act 1, scene 4), which Pushkin read in French translation. Malmsey was a kind of Madeira, not Malaga.
41. Tbilis-kalar…“Hot City”: Pushkin’s error: the city was known as “Tbilis-kalak,” kalak being Georgian for “city.” The same error appears in A Geographical and Statistical Description of Georgia and the Caucasus, by the German author Ioann-Anton Guldenstedt (1745–1781), published in Russian translation in 1809, which Pushkin probably used.
42. Count Samoilov: Nikolai Andreevich Samoilov (1800–1842), an officer in the Preobrazhensky regiment, was the cousin of the younger Raevskys (see note 4 above).
43. titular councilors…assessor: In the ascending order of the Russian table of ranks (see note 3 to “The Stationmaster”), titular councilor was ninth, equivalent to captain, and collegiate assessor was eighth, equivalent to major. In his story “The Nose” (1836), Pushkin’s young friend Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852) speaks of “collegiate assessors who are made in the Caucasus,” meaning made quickly.
44. General Sipyagin: Nikolai Martyanovich Sipyagin (1785–1828) was the military governor of Tiflis before his sudden death.
45. General Strekalov: Stepan Stepanovich Strekalov (1782–1856), who took over as military governor of Tiflis in 1828, arranged with the authorities to keep Pushkin under surveillance while he was in the city.
46. the slain Griboedov: See note 7 to “The Blizzard” and note 34 above. The Georgian drivers’ distortion of the name, “Griboed,” means “Mushroom-eater.” They of course had no idea who Griboedov was.
47. Buturlin: Nikolai Alexandrovich Buturlin (1801–1867), aide-de-camp to the Russian minister of war, Alexander Ivanovich Chernyshev (1786–1857), was sent to keep an eye on former Decembrists in the Caucasus, including Pushkin and Raevsky, and delivered a detailed report on them when he returned to Petersburg in 1829.