fn12 Konstantin Paustovskii, Povest’ o zhizni (Moscow: TERRA, 2017), 1:550.
fn13 Paustovskii, Vremia bol’shikh ozhidanii, 1:16.
fn14 Bunin’s postcard, dated 15 Sep. 1947, is in the collection of the K. G. Paustovsky Museum in Moscow.
fn15 Novyi mir, 3 (1955), 3.
fn16 Oktiabr’, 3 (1959), 3.
fn17 Paustovskii, Povest’ o zhizni, 1:550–52.
fn18 Epigraph to Living to Tell the Tale (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003).
fn19 Kornei Chukovskii, Dnevnik, 1901–1969 (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1994), 245.
fn20 Mir Paustovskogo, 30 (2012), 8–10.
fn21 Mir Paustovskogo, 30 (2012), 22–3; Paustovskii, Vremia bol’shikh ozhidanii, 1:19.
fn22 Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, Collection 1128, Inventory, 645, Folder 1 contains some of the many edits demanded of Paustovsky to volume five by Oktiabr’ prior to publication.
fn23 John Sendy, ‘In Memory of Paustovsky’, Australian Left Review (April–May 1969), 72.
fn24 Galina Burlaeva, ‘Literaturnyi arkhiv K. G. Paustovskogo v Moskovskom muzei-tsentre pisatelia’, in Pimneva et al. (eds), Literaturnoe nasledie, 488; Mir Paustovskogo, 23 (2005), 66–7.
fn25 Mir Paustovskogo, 21 (2004), 97–100; also Olivier, ‘Paustovskii v nachale XXI veka’, 14–15.
fn26 Joseph Brodsky, ‘A Commencement Address’, New York Review of Books, 16 Aug. 1984.
fn27 Mir Paustovskogo, 23 (2005), 7–23.
fn28 V. A. Bobkov, ‘Zhizn’ i deiatel’nost’ N. G. Vysochanskogo na Brianskoi zemle’, Vestnik Brianskogo gosuniversiteta, 2 (2009), 6–11; Mir Paustovskogo, 15 (2000), 47–53.
fn29 Vera Lindsay, ‘Childhood under the Tsars’, Sunday Times, 29 Jan. 1961.
fn30 Raymond Mortimer, ‘“The greatest living Russian author” in England’; Vera and John Russell, ‘A lifetime in revolution’, Sunday Times, 27 Sep. 1964; ‘Russian Proust’, Times Literary Supplement, 1 May 1969; Observer quotes from advertisements in the TLS, 16 Feb. 1967, 125 and The Times, 8 Oct. 1964, 15.
fn31 Jeremy Rundall, ‘Draught of the South’, Sunday Times, 16 Mar. 1969; ‘Konstantin Paustovsky: lyrical writer of Russia’; Lesley Branch, ‘Jackals among the azaleas’, The Times, 15 Mar. 1969; ‘Paustovsky when young’, The Times, 8 Oct. 1964; ‘Self-portrait of an artist in years of revolution’, The Times, 4 Nov. 1965; Iverach McDonald, ‘Russia going red’, The Times, 9 Feb. 1967.
fn32 The manuscripts are in Moscow’s Russian State Archive of Literature and Art.
fn33 ‘A Russian Soul’, New York Review of Books, 20 Aug. 1964.
fn34 Orville Prescott, ‘Books of the Times: A Magnificent Surprise from Russia’, New York Times, 1 Jul. 1964. See also Harrison E. Salisbury, ‘Through the Tumult and the Thaw’, New York Times. 3 May 1964.
fn35 Piotr Rawicz, ‘Une grande chronique de la révolution russe’, Le Monde, 26 Mar. 1966.
fn36 Mir Paustovskogo, 30 (2012), 33.
fn37 A. M. Blokh, Sovetskii Soiuz v inter’ere nobelevskikh premii: fakty, dokumenty, razmyshlenniia, komentarii (St Petersburg: Gumanistika, 2001), 678–9, 724–8; Kjell Espmark, The Nobel Prize in Literature: A Study behind the Criteria of the Choices (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991), 186; Paustovskii, Vremia bol’shikh ozhidanii, 1:21, 23; Mir Paustovskogo, 23 (2005), 65; Chukovskii, Dnevnik, 381.
fn38 F. D. Reeve, Robert Frost in Russia (Brookline, MA: Zephyr Press, [1964] 2001), 40, 45, 47–53.
fn39 Paustovskii, Vremia bol’shikh ozhidanii, 1:14, 19–24; Chukovskii, Dnevnik, 333, 502–3; Lobov and Vasil’eva, ‘On otdal svoë serdtse Rossii’, 46–76; ‘Russians ask for review of trial’, The Times, 16 Feb. 1968; ‘Konstantin Paustovsky: lyrical writer of Russia’.
fn40 On Paustovsky and Grin, see K. G. Paustovskii, ‘Aleksandr Grin’, God XXII, 15 (1939); ‘Zhizn’ Aleksandra Grina’, Konstantin Paustovsky website, http://paustovskiy-lit.ru/paustovskiy/public/zhizn-aleksandra-grina.htm, accessed 25 Feb. 2021; ‘Uchastie Paustovskogo v izdanii sochinenii A. Grina’, Konstantin Paustovsky website, http://paustovskiy-lit.ru/paustovskiy/bio/uchastie-paustovskogo-v-izdanii-grina.htm, accessed 11 Jan. 2021.
fn41 Literaturnaia Moskva: literaturno-khudozhestvennvyi sbornik Moskovskikh pisatelei (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1956); Tarusskie stranitsy: literaturno-khudozhestvennyi illiustrirovannyi sbornik (Kaluga: Kaluzhskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1961); Paustovskii, Vremia bol’shikh ozhidanii, 1:18, 20; Blokh, Sovetskii Soiuz v inter’ere nobelevskikh premii, 730.
fn42 Chukovskii, Dnevnik, 444.
fn43 Paustovskii, Vremia bol’shikh ozhidanii, 1:24.
1: The Death of My Father
fn1 A verst (versta) was equal to 1.06 kilometres or 0.66 miles.
fn2 A book of poems published in 1840 by Ukrainian national poet Taras Shevchenko (1814–61).
fn3 Countess Alexandra Branitskaya (1754–1838), niece of Prince Grigory Potëmkin.
fn4 Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855), Polish poet and dramatist and national hero.
fn5 Mikhail Skobelev (1843–82), famous Russian general and victor of the Siege of Plevna (1877) against the Ottoman Turks.
2: My Grandfather Maxim Grigorievich
fn1 The Zaporozhian Sich, a loose, semi-autonomous political structure created by Cossacks on the lower reaches of the river Dnieper, lasted for several hundred years until it was absorbed into the Russian Empire in 1775.
5: A Trip to Chenstokhov
fn1 Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846–1916), Polish novelist and journalist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1905).
6: Pink Oleanders
fn1 ‘Lel’ refers to mythical Slavic pagan goddesses of love or marriage.
fn2 Mikhail Vrubel (1856–1910), painter and sculptor particularly remembered for his series of ‘Demon’ paintings.
fn3 Vasily Vereshchagin (1842–1904), realist painter well known for his depictions of war.
7: Elderwood Balls
fn1 Nikolai Przhevalsky (1839–88), famous geographer and explorer of central and eastern Asia.
fn2 Paul Kruger (1825–1904), president of the South African Republic 1883–1900.
fn3 Grigory Grum-Grzhimailo (1860–1936), entomologist and lepidopterist, made numerous voyages to collect in central Asia and the Russian Far East; Vladimir (1864–1928), his younger brother, a noted metallurgist.
fn4 Menelik II (1884–1913), negus of Shewa 1866–89, emperor of Ethiopia 1889–1913.
fn5 Paustovsky’s uncle called his servant ‘Sam Pyu-chai’, which can be translated literally as ‘Drink tea myself’, an expression of a then rather common – and clearly xenophobic – punning on what were for Russians strange-sounding Chinese names and words.
9: Winter Scenes
fn1 In fact, Yekaterina Desnitskaya (b. 1886) lived until 1960. She married Prince Chakrabongse Bhuvanath (1883–1920) in 1906 and returned with him to Bangkok. They had one son, and then divorced in 1919.