[two posts follow below]
I MAY know something Alexey doesn’t
know. Lenin was one of the first to use the term “cherry-pick” in
relation to criticizing some distortions in Tsarist production
statistics.
Stan: No, I wasn't a diligint student
of Marxism-Leninism and do not know anything about Lenin's use of the
term "cherry-pick" (which I meet for the first time). I can't think of
the Russian counterpart of the term.
Speaking of Muni (in my previous
posting on Pale Fire), I forgot to mention that Muni was married to L.
Ya. Bryusov, the sister of the poet (on whom there is also a piece in
Khodasevich's Necropolis).
By the way, Bryusov had written a
poem on Lenin's death even before Lenin died (I quote from memory):
Gore, gore! Umer Lenin!
Vot lezhit on: khladen, tlenen. ("Woe to us! Lenin has died! Here he lies: cold,
liable to decay")
The irony is that Lenin's corpse was
embalmed, so that Lelin proved after all netlenen.
Also, I recently found out that one of
Bryusov's last loves was a young poetess Adalis (pen-name of Adelina
Efron). Someone has composed the verses:
Rasskazhite nam, Adalis,
Kak vy Bryusovu otdalis'. ("Tell us,
Adalis, how you gave yourself to Bryusov").
Alexey Sklyarenko
To be quite precise: Ivan Karamazov's
theory is best formulated by Rakitin, a minor character in Dostoevsky's
novel: "If there is no immortality of soul, then there is no virtue and
all is allowed" ("The Karamazov Brothers", Book Two "The Inappropriate
Meeting", ch. VII "The Career Seminarist").
Alexey Sklyarenko
All private editorial communications, without
exception, are
read by both co-editors.