[3]Proudhon and Bakunin:Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-65), French philosopher, a principal socialist theorist. Mikhail Bakunin (1814-76), Russian radical activist, a leader of the First International, later a major theorist of anarchism.
[4]February revolution . . .:the three-day revolution in 1848 that ended the reign of Louis-Philippe and proclaimed the Second Republic.
[5]souls:before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, Russian estates were evaluated according to the number of “souls,” or adult male serfs, living on them.
[6]provincial marshal of nobility:the highest elective office in a province, before the reforms of the 1860s. Governors and administrators were appointed by the tsar.
[7]ecclesiastical courts:courts exercising canon law rather than civil law. The Judicial Reform Act of 1864 raised the question of their continued existence, which was much debated in the press, by Dostoevsky among others.
[8]lover of mankind:an epithet for Christ in many Orthodox prayers and liturgical exclamations.
[9]holy fools:a “holy fool” (or “fool in God,” or “fool for Christ”—yurodivyi in Russian) could be a harmless village idiot (cf. “Stinking Lizaveta,” B.K.1.3.2), but there are also saintly persons or ascetics whose saintliness is expressed as “folly.” Holy fools of this sort were known early in Orthodox tradition. The term reappears several times in B.K., notably in reference to Alyosha.
[10]Il faudrait lesinventer. “They would have to be invented.” A variation of Voltaire’s Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer(“If God did not exist, he would have to be invented”).
[11]J’ai vu . . .:“I saw the shade of a coachman scrubbing the shade of a carriage with the shade of a brush.” A popular quotation from a seventeenth-century French parody of the Aeneid (book 6, the descent to the underworld) by Charles Perrault and others.
[12]Apostle Thomas:John 20:24-29.
[13]Tower of Babeclass="underline" Genesis 11:1-9.
[14]Ifthou wilt be perfect. ..: see Matthew 19:21, Mark 10:21, Luke 18:22.
[15]Sinaiand Athos:the monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai and the many monasteries on Mt. Athos in Greece, both ancient and still active Orthodox monastic centers.
[16]Tartar yoke:the period of Tartar domination of Russia (1237-1480), the Tartars, or Tatars, who invaded Russia from Central Asia, were of Turkish and Mongol origin.
[17]the fall of Constantinople:Constantinople (Istanbul), capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and ecclesiastical center of Orthodoxy, fell to the Turks in 1453.
[18]PaissyVelichkovsfey: (1722-94), “the father of the Russian elders” (G. P. Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind [Belmont, Mass , 1975], 2:394), canonized by the Russian Church in 1988. Dostoevsky owned a copy of the 1854 edition of his translation of the homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian, a seventh-century monk; the book is mentioned twice in B.K. St. Isaac, whose spiritual influence has been very great, seems also to have influenced Dostoevsky’s elder Zosima, particularly in his reflections on hell and divine love (see Terras, pp. 22-23).
[19]Kozelskaya-Optina: pilgrims of all classes visited this celebrated hermitage, among them Dostoevsky, who drew from it a number of details for the monastery in : B. The elder Zosima is thought to be modeled in part on the elder Amvrosy of Optina (1812-91), canonized by the Russian Church in 1988, six months after the hermitage was restored to the Church by the Soviet authorities.
[20]All catechumens, depart:an exclamation that occurs at a certain point in the Orthodox liturgy. A catechumen is a person preparing for baptism, hence not yet “in” the Church The catechumens are asked to depart, only the “faithful” remaining for the Eucharist. This monk, by his disobedience, made himself “unfaithful”—hence his departure.
[21]EcumenicalPatriarch:title of the Patriarch of Constantinople, the highest administrative authority of the Greek Orthodox Church and its exarchies.
[22]Whomade me...: see Luke 12:14.
[23]Un chevalier parfait:“A perfect knight.”
[24]von Sohn:victim of an actual murder case in Petersburg in 1870.
[25]WheninRome...: a substitute for the Russian saying Fyodor Pavlovich actually uses: “Don’t take your ordo| monastic rule ] to another monastery,” which is more apropos.
[26]hieromonks:a hieromonk is a monk who is also a priest.
[27]schism:the reforms of the patriarch Nikon (1605-81) caused a split, or “schism,” in the Russian Orthodox Church, the “Old Believers” refusing to accept his changes.
[28]punctuality. . .: a popular saying in Russia, attributed to Louis XVIII.
[29]Napravnik: E F. Napravnik (1839-1916), Russian composer, first Kapellmeister, or director, of the Mariinsky (now Kirov) Theater, the imperial opera and ballet theater in Petersburg.
[30]Diderot: Denis Diderot (1713-84), French philosopher and writer, founder of the Encyclopédie, an atheist and materialist. He was invited to Russia in 1733 by the empress Catherine the Great (1729-96) and spent five months there.
[31]MetropolitanPlaton: (1737-1812), bishop of the “metropolis” of Moscow, a famous preacher and Church activist.
[32]The fool hath said. . .: Psalms 14:1, 53:1.
[33]PrincessDashkova ... and ... Potiomkin: Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova (1743-1810), writer, president of the Russian Academy, and a close friend of the empress Catherine. Grigory Alexandrovich Potiomkin (1739-91), general and statesman, the most famous and influential of Catherine’s lovers.
[34]Blessed. . .: Luke 11:27.
[35]Teacher ... what should I do ...:see Luke 10:25, Mark 10:17, Matthew 19:16.
[36]father of a lie ... son of a lie ...:see John 8:44, where the “father” refers to the devil. The phrase and its correction may be a first hint at later developments concerning Ivan.
[37]some holy wonder-worker...: the reference is to St. Denis of Paris (third century ad); the source, however, is not the Lives of the Saints, but Voltaire, who tells this jesting story about St. Denis in the notes to his play The Maid of Orleans(1774).
[38]read from the Lives of the Saints . . .:Miusov and his French informant are unaware (which is the point) that saints’ lives are not read in the Orthodox liturgy.
[39]three months short of three years old.Dostoevsky’s son Alexei died at this age in 1878.
[40]Rachel of old . . .:Matthew 2:18 (quoti’ jjeremiah 31:15).
[41]Alexei, the man of God:St. Alexis, a Greek anchorite who died around 412 a.d., is much loved in Russia, where he is known as “Alexei, the man of God.” There is a folk legend of his life, from which Dostoevsky may have drawn. Alexei Karamazov is referred to several times as a “man of God.”
[42]And there is more joy...: see Luke 15:7.
[43]Lise: Madame Khokhlakov often uses this French form of her daughter’s name, as do the narrator and Alyosha.
[44]burdock...: words spoken by Bazarov, the atheist hero of Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons(1862).
[45]ecclesiastical courts: setnote 2 to page 16 in section 1.1.3 above.
[46]Ultramontanism:the doctrine of absolute papal supremacy favored by members of the Italian party in the Roman Catholic Church, who were “across the mountains” (ultramontane) from their French opponents, the “Gallican” party. The controversy dates to the 1820s.
[47]a kingdom...: see John 18:36 for the true sense of these words.