Academics From Russia

"A thermonuclear war cannot be considered a continuation of politics by other means (according to the formula of Clausewitz). It would be a means of universal suicide."

"Fortunately for the stability of the world, the difference between the technical-economic potentials of the Soviet Union and the United States is not so great that one of the sides could undertake a "preventive aggression" without an almost inevitable risk of a destructive retaliatory blow. This situation would not be changed by a broadening of the arms race through the development of anti-missile defenses."

"The experience of past wars shows that the first use of a new technical or tactical method of attack is usually highly effective even if a simple antidote can soon be developed. But in a thermonuclear war the first blow may be the decisive one and render null and void years of work and billions spent on creation of an anti-missile system."

"The technology and tactics of attack have now far surpassed the technology of defense despite the development of highly maneuverable and powerful anti-missiles with nuclear warheads and despite other technical ideas, such as the use of laser beams and so forth."

"A very large nuclear war would be a calamity of indescribable proportions and absolutely unpredictable consequences, with the uncertainties tending towards the worse...All-out nuclear war would mean the destruction of contemporary civilization, throw man back centuries, cause the deaths of hundreds of millions or billions of people, and, with a certain degree of probability, would cause man to be destroyed as a biological species."

"Three technical aspects of thermonuclear weapons have made thermonuclear war a peril to the very existence of humanity. These aspects are: the enormous destructive power of a thermonuclear explosion, the relative cheapness of rocket-thermonuclear weapons, and the practical impos­sibility of an effective defense against a massive rocket-nuclear attack."

"The worldwide dangers of war, famine, cults of personality, and bureaucracy — these are perils for all of mankind. Recognition by the working class and the intelligentsia of their common interests has been a striking phenomenon of the present day. The most progressive, internationalist, and dedicated element of the intelligentsia is, in essence, part of the working class, and the most advanced, educated, internationalist, and broad-minded part of the working class is part of the intelligentsia."

"Intellectual freedom is essential to human society — freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and unfearing debate, and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices. Such a trinity of freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorship. Freedom of thought is the only guarantee of the feasibility of a scientific democratic approach to politics, economy, and culture. But freedom of thought is under a triple threat in modern society—from the deliberate opium of mass culture, from cowardly, egotistic, and philistine ideologies, and from the ossified dogmatism of a bureaucratic oligarchy and its favorite weapon, ideological censorship. Therefore, freedom of thought requires the defense of all thinking and honest people."

"Millions of people throughout the world are striving to put an end to poverty. They despise oppression, dogmatism, and demagogy (and their more extreme manifestations — racism, fascism, Stalinism, and Maoism). They believe in progress based on the use, under conditions of social justice and intellectual freedom, of all the positive experience accumulated by mankind."

"The division of mankind threatens it with destruction. Civilization is imperiled by: a universal thermonuclear war, catastrophic hunger for most of mankind, stupefaction from the narcotic of "mass culture," and bureaucratized dogmatism, a spreading of mass myths that put entire peoples and continents under the power of cruel and treacherous demagogues, and destruction or degeneration from the unforeseeable consequences of swift changes in the conditions of life on our planet. In the face of these perils, any action increasing the division of mankind, any preaching of the incompatibility of world ideologies and nations is madness and a crime. Only universal cooperation under conditions of intellec­tual freedom and the lofty moral ideals of socialism and labor, accompanied by the elimination of dogmatism and pressures of the concealed interests of ruling classes, will preserve civilization. The reader will understand that ideological collaboration cannot apply to those fanatical, sectarian, and extremist ideologies that reject all possibility of rapprochement, discussion, and compromise, for example, the ideologies of fascist, racist, militaristic, and Maoist demagogy."

"We regard as "scientific" a method based on deep analysis of facts, theories, and views, presupposing unprejudiced, unfearing open discussion and conclusions. The complexity and diversity of all the phenomena of modern life, the great possibilities and dangers linked with the scientific-technical revolution and with a number of social tendencies demand precisely such an approach, as has been acknowledged in a number of official statements."

"God save us from seeing a Russian revolt, senseless and merciless. Those who plot impossible upheavals among us, are either young and do not know our people, or are hard-hearted men who do not care a straw either about their own lives or those of others."

"В поэзии Пушкина метонимия и перифраза являются основным элементом стиля... В этом отношении Пушкин продолжает традицию поэтов XVIII в. ... Тема о Пушкине как завершителе русского классицизма давно уже стоит на очереди, но требуются многочисленные предварительные работы по русскому языку XVIII в., которые до сих пор не сделаны. С другой стороны, возникает вопрос о «наследии Пушкина» в XIX в. Поэты XIX в. не были учениками Пушкина; после его смерти возобладала романтическая традиция, восходящая к Жуковскому и воспитанная под немецким влиянием."

"Pushkin grew with the years. Every other writer claimed descent from him. Inexplicably, the whole of Russian literature proceeded from his genius. Poetry, novels, short stories, history, theater, criticism—he had opened up the whole gamut of literary endeavor to his countrymen. He was first in time, and first in quality. He was the source. Neither Gogol nor Tolstoy could have existed without him, for he made the Russian language; he prepared the ground for the growth of every genre."

"In the tiny gardens-sunflowers, rezedas, poppies,/blonde braids, beribboned cockades, Pushkin and Nadson."

"One often hears: that is good but it belongs to yesterday. But I say: yesterday has not yet been born. It has not yet really existed. I want Ovid, Pushkin, and Catullus to live once more, and I am not satisfied with the historical Ovid, Pushkin, and Catullus."

"I brought with me to Siberia books by Pushkin, Lermontov and Nekrasov. Ilyich arranged them near his bed, alongside Hegel, and read them over and over again in the evenings. Pushkin was his favourite."

"Несмотря на всю свою славу, Пушкин при жизни не был достаточно глубоко оценен даже наиболее проницательными из своих современников. ... В той или иной степени это непонимание продолжалось около полустолетия. ... Лишь после знаменитой речи Достоевского Пушкин открылся не только как «солнце нашей поэзии», но и как пророческое явление. ... Нисколько не удивительно, что, прослушав ее, люди обнимались и плакали: в ту минуту им дано было новое, необычайно возвышенное и гордое понятие не только о Пушкине, но и обо всей России, и о них самих в том числе."

"А Пушкин — наше всё: Пушкин — представитель всего нашего душевного, особенного, такого, что остается нашим душевным, особенным после всех столкновений с чужим, с другими мирами. Пушкин — пока единственный полный очерк нашей народной личности, самородок, принимавший в себя, при всевозможных столкновениях с другими особенностями и организмами, все то, что принять следует, отбрасывавший все, что отбросить следует ... сочувствия старой русской жизни и стремления новой, — все вошло в его полную натуру в той стройной мере, в какой бытие послепотопное является сравнительно с бытием допотопным, в той мере, которая определяется русскою душою."

"Солнце нашей поэзии закатилось! Пушкин скончался, скончался во цвете лет, в средине своего великого поприща!.. Более говорить о сем не имеем силы, да и не нужно; всякое русское сердце знает всю цену этой невозвратимой потери, и всякое русское сердце будет растерзано."

"Homeland, tenderer than first caresses,/you have taught me to protect and guard/golden language in all Pushkin's treasures,/Gogol's magic, captivating word."

"Tormented by spiritual thirst, I dragged myself through a somber desert. And a six-winged seraph Appeared to meet me at the crossing of the ways. He touched my eyes With fingers as light as a dream: And my prophetic eyes opened Like those of a frightened eagle. He touched my ears And they were filled with noise and ringing: And I heard the shuddering of the heavens, And the flight of the angels in the heights, And the movement of the beasts of the sea under the waters, And the sound of the vine growing in the valley. He bent down to my mouth And tore out my tongue, Sinful, decitful, and given to idle talk; with the right hand steeped in blood He inserted the tongue of a wise serpent, Into my benumbed mouth. He clove my breast with a sword, And plucked out my quivering heart, And thrust a coal of live fire Into my gaping breast. Like a corpse I lay in the desert. And the voice of God called out to me: 'Arise, O prophet, see and hear, Be filled with my will, Go forth over land and sea, And set the hearts of men on fire with your Word.'"

"Hermann went out of his mind, and is now confined in room Number 17 of the Obukhov Hospital. He never answers any questions, but he constantly mutters with unusual rapidity: "Three, seven, ace!" "Three, seven, queen!""

""Ace has won!" cried Hermann, showing his card. "Your queen has lost," said Chekalinsky, politely. Hermann started; instead of an ace, there lay before him the queen of spades! He could not believe his eyes, nor could he understand how he had made such a mistake. At that moment it seemed to him that the queen of spades smiled ironically and winked her eye at him. He was struck by her remarkable resemblance... "The old Countess!" he exclaimed, seized with terror."

"Two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than two bodies can occupy one and the same place in the physical world."

"I have come to you against my wish," she said in a firm voice: "but I have been ordered to grant your request. Three, seven, ace, will win for you if played in succession, but only on these conditions: that you do not play more than one card in twenty-four hours, and that you never play again during the rest of your life. I forgive you my death, on condition that you marry my companion, Lizaveta Ivanovna."

""The bread of the stranger is bitter," says Dante, "and his staircase hard to climb." But who can know what the bitterness of dependence is so well as the poor companion of an old lady of quality?"

"What stirs ye? Is it that this nation"

"The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths."

".. you mark the fate"

"And shall Slavonic streams meet in a Russian ocean --"

"Why rave ye, babblers, so -- ye lords of popular wonder?"

"Mosalsky: Good folk! Maria Godunov and her son Feodor have poisoned themselves. We have seen their dead bodies. [The People are silent with horror.] Why are ye silent? Cry, Long live the Tsar Dimitry Ivanovich! [The People are speechless.]"

"Ah! heavy art thou, crown of Monomakh!"

"Like some magistrate grown gray in office, Calmly he contemplates alike the just And unjust, with indifference he notes Evil and good, and knows not wrath nor pity."

"Pimen [writing in front of a sacred lamp]: One more, the final record, and my annals Are ended, and fulfilled the duty laid By God on me a sinner. Not in vain Hath God appointed me for many years A witness, teaching me the art of letters; A day will come when some laborious monk Will bring to light my zealous, nameless toil, Kindle, as I, his lamp, and from the parchment Shaking the dust of ages will transcribe My true narrations."

"Что наши лучшие желанья, Что наши свежие мечтанья Истлели быстрой чередой, Как листья осенью гнилой."

"Москва… как много в этом звуке Для сердца русского слилось! Как много в нем отозвалось!"

"The clock of doom had struck as fated; the poet, without a sound, let fall his pistol on the ground."

"The less we show our love to a woman, Or please her less, and neglect our duty, The more we trap and ruin her surely In the flattering toils of philandery."

"Send me, Almighty, I petition, In porticoes or at a ball No bonneted academician, No seminarist in a yellow shawl! No more than in red lips unsmiling Can I find anything beguiling In grammar-perfect Russian speech. What purist magazines beseech, A novel breed of belles may heed it, And bend us (for my life of sin) To strict grammatic discipline, Prescribing meter, too, where needed; But I - what is all this to me? I like things as they used to be"

"Привычка свыше нам дана: Замена счастию она."

"Прошла любовь, явилась Муза, И прояснился темный ум. Свободен, вновь ищу союза Волшебных звуков, чувств и дум;"

"Недуг, которого причину Давно бы отыскать пора, Подобный английскому сплину, Короче: русская хандра"

"A man who's active and incisive can yet keep nail-care much in mind: why fight what's known to be decisive? custom is despot of mankind."

"Всегда довольный сам собой, Своим обедом и женой."

"Unforced, as conversation passed, he had the talent of saluting felicitously every theme, of listening like a judge-supreme while serious topics were disputing, or, with an epigram-surprise, of kindling smiles in ladies' eyes."

"There yet remains but one concluding tale, And then this chronicle of mine is ended— Fulfilled, the duty God ordained to me, A sinner. Not without purpose did the Lord Put me to witness much for many years And educate me in the love of books. One day some indefatigable monk Will find my conscientious, unsigned work; Like me, he will light up his ikon-lamp And, shaking from the scroll the age-old dust, He will transcribe these tales in all their truth."

"Но так и быть — рукой пристрастной Прими собранье пестрых глав, Полусмешных, полупечальных, Простонародных, идеальных, Небрежный плод моих забав, Бессониц, легких вдохновений, Незрелых и увядших лет, Ума холодных наблюдений И сердца горестных замет."

"Come purge my soul, Thou Master of my days, Of vain and empty words, of idle ways, Of base ambition and the urge to rule; That hidden serpent that corrupts a fool; and grant me, Lord, to see my sins alone. That I not call my brother to atone; Make chaste my heart and lend me from above Thy fortitude, humility, and love."