War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [815]
8. “Christian”…krestyan: The Russian word krestyanin (“peasant”) comes from the word khristianin, pronounced almost identically and meaning “Christian” or simply “human being.”
9. The birds of the air…your Father feeds them: A shortened quotation of Christ’s words in the Sermon on the Mount: “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them” (Matthew 6:26).
Part Two
1. the so-called flanking march beyond Krasnaya Pakhra: This movement was part of Kutuzov’s plan. He withdrew the Russian army from Moscow on the Ryazan road, but then shifted to the Tula road, and at Krasnaya Pakhra turned the main body of the army sharply southwards to the Kaluga road and camped at Tarutino, thus barring the way for the French to the fertile Russian provinces to the south and to cities with military supplies (Tula, Briansk), while the two Cossack regiments of the Russian rear guard continued to retreat down the Ryazan road, misleading Murat, who was in command of the French vanguard and indeed lost sight of the enemy.
2. defending the Tula factory: The city of Tula, some 160 miles south of Moscow, was renowned for its metalworkers, particularly its gunsmiths.
3. torban: The torban is a multistringed east European musical instrument combining features of the lute and the psaltery, played mainly in the Ukraine. Its name may come from the west European theorbo.
4. To undercut Konovnitsyn: After Borodino, Konovnitsyn was appointed general on duty of the army and would have been responsible for the failure to carry out the commander in chief’s order.
5. Captain Yakovlev…Tutolmin…: See note 5 to Volume IV, Part One. Alexander Herzen recounts this episode from his father’s life in his autobiographical work, My Past and Thoughts (1867), the early chapters of which were first published in the magazine Polar Star in 1856, where Tolstoy read them. In 1812, Major General I. V. Tutolmin was director of the Moscow orphanage and remained in Moscow when the French occupied it.
6. Inhabitants of Moscow!…do not be slow to unite with us!: Tolstoy took these two proclamations word for word from Volume III of A Description of the Fatherland War of 1812, by A. I. Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, published in Petersburg in 1839. They are written in very bad Russian.
7. Maison de ma mère…a sovereign’s virtue: Tolstoy found this detail in excerpts from Moscow newspapers of 18 September 1812, published in the Russian Archive.
8. Thiers…Mr. Fain: Agathon Jean François, Baron Fain (1778–1837), Napoleon’s secretary and archivist, published a number of works contributing to the history of the emperor’s last years. Thiers polemicizes with Fain’s Manuscript About the Year 1812 (Paris, 1827) in his History of the Consulate and the Empire (see note 17 to Volume I, Part Two).
9. his letters to Mme de Staël: The French novelist and essayist Anne-Louise-Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) was an outspoken critic of Napoleon, who banished her from Paris in 1802. In 1812 she was in Russia. She indeed exchanged letters with Kutuzov and was the first to congratulate him on his appointment as commander in chief.
10. the simple soldier Mouton: General Régis-Barthélemy Mouton-Duvernet (1769–1816) was a “simple soldier” only in the sense that he spoke directly and without useless gestures at the military council of 25 October.
Part Three
1. the guerrillas in Spain: See note 20 to Volume II, Part Three.
2. under the German’s command: Tolstoy based Denisov’s stratagem here on a passage from Denis Davydov’s Essay Towards a Theory of Partisan Warfare (see note 15 to Volume III, Part Two).
3. the battle of Vyazma: The first major battle during Napoleon’s retreat down the Smolensk road was at Vyazma on 2–3 November 1812, where the Russian vanguard under Miloradovich won an important victory which finally broke the spirit