War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [810]
19. Württembergs, Badens, Weimars…: The mother of Alexander I, Maria Feodorovna, was princess of Württemberg before her marriage to Paul I; his sister Ekaterina Pavlovna was married to the duke of Oldenburg, and his sister Marya Pavlovna to the prince of Saxe-Weimar.
20. in Moldavia…commander in chief: Having fallen into disgrace after the battle of Austerlitz, Kutuzov was sent to administrative posts in Kiev and then Vilno, but in March 1811 he was brought back to lead the army in Moldavia.
21. his German accent: In fact, Barclay de Tolly was of Scottish ancestry and was born in Lithuania, but Tolstoy reflects the habit among Russian soldiers of considering all foreigners “Germans” (see note 3 to Volume I, Part Two).
22. Jena and Auerstädt: See note 17 to Volume II, Part One.
23. the Russian Thermopylae…alongside them: In 480 b.c. three hundred Spartans under the command of their king, Leonidas, defended the pass at Thermopylae in Thessaly against the entire army of the Persian king Xerxes and perished there. At Saltanovo, General Raevsky with a detachment of 15,000 men fought for ten hours against the five divisions of Marshals Davout and Mortier. Raevsky himself denied the truth of the story about his two sons, though his courage during the battle was well-known.
24. St. Peter’s fast…prepare for communion: There is a two-week fast period preceding the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul on 29 June. Preparation for communion involves attendance at weekday and Sunday services, prayer, fasting, and confession.
25. she tried to follow and understand: The language of the Russian Orthodox Church is Church Slavonic, a liturgical language with its own alphabet, developed originally in the ninth century from Slavic dialects spoken in Thessaly and Bulgaria, which is only partly comprehensible for Russians.
26. As one world: A common example of the problems that can occur for Russians in understanding church prayers. In both Slavonic and Russian, the words for peace and world sound the same; hence when the deacon says “peace” here and further on, Natasha (or possibly Tolstoy himself) understands it as “the world.” It is impossible to convey this confusion in English.
27. the synod: See note 17 to Volume II, Part Two.
28. the feast of the Trinity: Another name for the feast of Pentecost in the Orthodox Church, marking the end of the Pascal period. The priest and congregation kneel at vespers while the priest recites three long prayers.
29. Moses…Gideon…David: Three famous Old Testament confrontations. In Exodus 17:8–16, Moses sent Joshua to fight against Amalek and Joshua “mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword” the battle of Gideon, the fifth of the Judges of Israel, with the Midianites is recounted in Judges 7–8; and the story of David’s slaying of the Philistine champion Goliath is told in I Samuel 17.
30. the Apocalypse of St. John: The language of the final book of the New Testament, also called The Revelation to St. John, is so symbolic that it can easily be applied to all sorts of historical events. The “beast from the earth” whose number is 666 (Revelation 13:11–18) deceives the people and has been interpreted as symbolizing imperial power.
31. spine…prickly old German: In the original, there is a pun on the words for spy (shpion) and mushroom (shampinion). The incident is recounted in Notes of the Year Twelve, by Sergei Glinka, editor of the Russian Messenger, who served as a Moscow militiaman in 1805–1807. The book, published in Petersburg in 1836, is in Tolstoy’s library at Yasnaya Polyana. The pun is thought to be Rastopchin’s own invention.
32. our first-throned capital, Moscow: A deferential title of the elder of the “two capitals” of Russia.
33. the Tsar-Cannon: An enormous bronze cannon, weighing forty tons, cast in 1586, which stands in the Kremlin not far from the cathedral of the Dormition.
34. tossing biscuits from the balcony: Despite his claim (see Appendix) that he could always give historical references for the passages in his novel in which