Unpublished Letters Research Articles

New Data in Old Documents

Published in 2023, the collection Russian Music Archives Abroad is dedicated mainly to the documentary heritage of musical culture. Twenty articles based on a scientific conference held for over 25 years by the Moscow Conservatory are arranged according to the chronology of the events under consideration. The novelty of the articles is ensured by turning to materials that have not yet attracted the attention of researchers. The authors touched upon a number of important topics, such as the Russian destinies of operas by Western European composers of the 18th century; the foreign trace in the musical history of St. Petersburg and Moscow in the 19th century; foreign pages of the legacy of composers S. V. Rachmaninoff and S. S. Prokofiev; Soviet contacts of Russian emigrants; communication of Soviet performers with foreign correspondents; reviews of archive repositories, etc. Most articles represent scientific research, often with abundant citations of the material under consideration. For example, the article by S. A. Petukhova provides previously unpublished letters from the famous singer M. N. Klimentyeva-Muromtseva to S. I. Taneyev from Paris (1901–1903), which consistently trace not only the preparation for the Parisian performance of the only opera by S. I. Taneyev, but also the events of the musical life of this city in the first years of the 20th century. The publication of the correspondence between G. Puccini and the Russian opera director V. S. Alekseyev can be considered a major event for Russian historiography. The book presents many research findings reflecting the peculiarities of the development of the musical genre in Russia and abroad. It is important to note the researcher’s remark that operas by foreign composers lost their typical genre features when adapted to the Russian stage (vocalized recitatives were replaced by spoken dialogues), which in turn constituted the phenomenon of the original development of secular music in Russia. Considerable additional information is provided, making the narrative both engaging and comprehensive, which is further enhanced by the sequence of articles in the collection. For example, S. A. Petukhova’s article based on letters about the preparation of the opera is followed by V. B. Valkovoe’s article, which reconstructs the conditions and circumstances of S. V. Rachmaninoff’s tour in the spring of 1899 as a pianist and conductor. This is a beautifully published collection, containing a wealth of new valuable information about important figures and processes in the musical culture of several centuries. It will not only serve as a significant aid to modern researchers in their work, but will also attract the attention of an enlightened audience of all those interested in musical art.

A new interpretation of the inscription on the bronze mirror from Olbia

The inscription on a bronze mirror from Olbia mentioning the name Δημώνασσα (IGDOlb 92) and an unpublished letter on a lead plate with a fragmented author’s name [– – –]ώνασσα, probably, belong to one person, Demonassa Lenaio (Δημώνασσα Ληναίοˉ), who lived in 480-380 BC. The letter also mentions two men: the addressee, Demonassa’s husband, Anthesterius (Ἀνθεστήριος), and a certain Ankhitheos (Ἀνχ̣ίτεος = Ἀγχ̣ίθεος). The hypothesis further suggests that the monogram carved prominently in the centre of the bronze mirror – a ligature of άλφα and νι, – represents a gift inscription by one of these men. The publisher’s hypothesis that these two letters are a diphthong αί, which perhaps repeats the last syllable of the exclamation εὐαὶ (sic) contains a contradiction.

A new interpretation of the inscription on the bronze mirror from Olbia

The inscription on a bronze mirror from Olbia mentioning the name Δημώνασσα (IGDOlb 92) and an unpublished letter on a lead plate with a fragmented author’s name [– – –]ώνασσα, probably, belong to one person, Demonassa Lenaio (Δημώνασσα Ληναίοˉ), who lived in 480-380 BC. The letter also mentions two men: the addressee, Demonassa’s husband, Anthesterius (Ἀνθεστήριος), and a certain Ankhitheos (Ἀνχ̣ίτεος = Ἀγχ̣ίθεος). The hypothesis further suggests that the monogram carved prominently in the centre of the bronze mirror – a ligature of άλφα and νι, – represents a gift inscription by one of these men. The publisher’s hypothesis that these two letters are a diphthong αί, which perhaps repeats the last syllable of the exclamation εὐαὶ (sic) contains a contradiction.

А. Платонов в документах Литературного фонда СССР

For the first time, the article highlights the history of A.P. Platonov’s appeals to the USSR Literary Fund, an organization created for the writers’ material and consumer services, which included medical care and sanatorium treatment, improvement of housing conditions, the issuance of allowances, loans, and scholarships, etc. A survey of the foundation of this organization in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI) for the period from 1934 to 1954 revealed numerous references to Platonov, as well as three of his previously unpublished letters. The article contains extracts from the minutes of meetings of the Board of the Literary Fund and other documents, which record decisions on issues of assistance to Platonov. A separate group consists of materials related to the posthumous period: estimates for funerals, decisions on the installation of a tombstone monument, petitions of the commission on literary heritage, etc. The published documents allow us to reconstruct some details of Platonov’s biography, supplement the chronicle of his life and work, as well as the history of perpetuating the writer’s memory.

Защита Достоевского: История диссертации Д.Л. Соркиной 1956 года

The article reconstructs the history of Dvosia Lvovna Sorkina’s (1922–2011) dissertation, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Novel The Idiot and the Socio-Literary Struggle of the 1860s. The dissertation was defended at Leningrad University in 1956. The article is based on archival and published sources, including previously unpublished letters from Dvosya Sorkina to her academic advisor, prof. Arkady Dolinin, a prominent researcher of Dostoevsky. Sorkina started her research in the mid-1940s, but the ideology of late Stalinism was markedly unfriendly to the study of the great Russian writer. The ideological campaign launched in 1947 against Dostoevsky’s legacy significantly hampered progress of the dissertation. Increasing ideological pressure on philological scholarship over the years resulted in even official opponents (Grigory Byaly and Alexander Dementyev) seeking to distance themselves from the dangerous topic, thereby complicating the submission of the dissertation for defense. In 1950, a fateful event for Dostoevsky studies occurred: the publication of Lenin’s letter to Inessa Armand, sharply criticizing the great Russian writer. Since Lenin’s views were treated as tantamount to a party directive, after 1950, the communist press frequently cited this letter to discredit Dostoevsky’s legacy. As a result, Dostoevsky’s name was removed from university curricula, his works ceased to be published, and Dostoevsky studies were effectively banned outright. It was only after Stalin’s death that Dostoevsky was rehabilitated, allowing Dvosya Sorkina, during the thaw of the Khrushchev era, to resume her work. In 1956, she successfully defended her dissertation and later became a renowned scholar in Dostoevsky’s tudies.

P.I. Bartenev and I. E. Zabelin: Publisher and correspondent communication as an instrument of the editorial policy of the Russkii archiv

The subject of this article is the communication between Peter Ivanovich Bartenev and Ivan Egorovich Zabelin as one of the tools of the editorial policy of the historical and literary journal "Russkii archiv". From 1863 to 1912, Bartenev was not only the publisher, but also the editor of this magazine. He received most of the materials for publication from correspondents with whom he conducted extensive correspondence. An important role was played by the personal relationship of the authors with the publisher, on whom the publication of the material sent to the editorial office depended. Ivan Egorovich Zabelin was one of the numerous correspondents of the Russkii archiv. Using the example of his relationship with Peter Ivanovich Baretnev, one can consider how the process of communication between the editor and the authors who published their research in the journal under study took place. The methodology of this research is based on historicism. A combination of chronological, analytical, historical and biographical methods was used in the work. The novelty of the work consists in studying unpublished letters from Peter Ivanovich Bartenev to Ivan Egorovich Zabelin from the OPI, which allow us to conclude that Bartenev's personal communications play a crucial role in his efforts to attract historical materials for the Russkii archiv. The preserved correspondence reflects the process of interaction between the publisher and the author at different stages of cooperation. The establishment of strong business and sometimes friendly ties allowed Bartenev to initiate publications himself. This article also highlights in detail the participation of Ivan Egorovich Zabelin in the controversy about the heroes of the Time of Troubles, which began on the pages of the periodical press. To answer his opponent, the historian turned to Bartenev to have his work published in the Russkii archiv.

Adelaide Ristori ed Ernest Legouvé. La via francese alla carriera internazionale

This essay aims to focus on the professional relationship between Adelaide Ristori and Ernest Legouvé as an example of the collaboration between an actress and a playwright within a prestigious international context. It investigates, for the first time in an organized manner, the partnership between the French playwright and the actress during the production of Béatrix ou la Madone de l’art. This play was specifically composed by Legouvé for Ristori, who debuted in French in 1861. The study relies on documents stored in the Ristori Archive at the Museo Biblioteca dell’Attore in Genoa, with particular attention to a group of unpublished letters from Legouvé to the actress regarding the preparation and rehearsals of the performance. Ristori’s annotated script for Béatrix, her notebooks and letters are also analysed. By relating these materials with reviews from the Parisian press, this study identifies this production as a stylistic turning point in the work of the Grande Attrice.

Two Unpublished Letters of Jean Basset: A Young French Missionary Sent to Siam in 1685

This notice presents two previously unpublished letters by Jean Basset (1661‒1707), a young French Catholic missionary, written during his 1685 journey to Siam, as discussed in the previous issue of this journal. These letters offer valuable insights into Basset’s experiences and mindset as a newly dispatched missionary to Asia. Through his correspondence with his former superior, the letters provide a rare glimpse into the challenges he faced, the practical aspects of his advanced training, his relationship with peers including the Jesuits, and his adaptation to life both during the sea journey and in the new mission land.

Structuralism’s Other Saussure

This article attempts to place the psychoanalyst Raymond de Saussure (son of Ferdinand de Saussure and an analysand of Freud) within the history of structuralism, by emphasizing the linguistic dimensions of his early psychoanalytic thought. With reference to numerous unpublished letters, and other archival material, it reconstructs in detail three pivotal moments in the young de Saussure’s early career. First, it locates a preliminary attempt to combine Freudian psychoanalysis with the linguistic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure in Raymond de Saussure’s correspondence with the linguist Charles Bally and his review of Antoine Meillet. An attempt is then made to situate Saussure within the context of an early Swiss interest in the relationship between linguistics and psychoanalysis through a study of the papers presented by his colleagues Jean Piaget and Sabina Spielrein, at the 1922 International Psychoanalytic Congress in Berlin. The article then shifts its focus to 1940s New York, to explore how Saussure assisted his close friends and collaborators Roman Jakobson and, to a lesser extent, Claude Lévi-Strauss in establishing the fundamental coordinates of the structuralist movement. The article aims to call attention to an earlier Freudo-Saussurean synthesis that has been overshadowed by Jacques Lacan’s later, more elaborate, application of Saussurean linguistics to psychoanalysis.

John Dalton’s Debt to John Gough, the ‘Blind Philosopher’ of Kendal

This paper examines the influence of John Gough (1757–1825), the ‘blind philosopher’ and polymath of Kendal, on the early scientific career of the physicist John Dalton FRS (1766–1844), proposer of the Atomic Theory. During Dalton’s early years in Kendal (1781–1793) Gough served as his tutor in mathematics, mentor and friend and played a significant role in Dalton’s early development as a scientist. Gough taught Dalton to record meteorological data and many facets of Gough’s ideas are found, frequently unattributed, in Dalton’s publications. His Meteorological Observations and Essays included several such ideas but failed to credit Gough by name. Several of Gough’s early experiments on the quantitative exchange of atmospheric gases during the germination and growth of plants, and his accompanying estimations of their specific gravity, clearly drew Dalton’s interest. It is his exposure to ideas like these that Dalton was later able to draw on when developing his Atomic Theory. Contributions to Dalton’s early scientific career by two further Cumbrians, Elihu Robinson (1734–1820) of Eaglesfield and Peter Crosthwaite (1735–1808) of Keswick are also mentioned where they impinge on the storyline. An apparently unpublished letter from Gough to Crosthwaite in early 1788 throws further light on the Gough-Dalton relationship.

Alfredo Magalhães Ramalho’s scientific correspondence: historical connections between oceanography and marine biology from Portugal (1919–1949)

This article presents Alfredo Magalhães Ramalho’s scientific correspondence between 1919 and 1949, both nationally and internationally. It consists of 181 unpublished letters, exchanged with 30 relevant figures belonging to 11 countries, including France, the UK, Croatia, Japan, Germany, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Morocco, Belgium and Spain. This correspondence shows a network among different research institutions devoted to the marine sciences. This includes biological stations, such as the Istituto Italo-Germanico di Biologia Marina, laboratories and museums, e. g. the British Museum of Natural History. At the national level, the correspondence between Ramalho and Augusto Nobre represents a historical axis between Lisbon and Porto, involving two of the most relevant scientists in the fields of oceanography and marine biology. At the international level, Ramalho corresponded with personalities such as Henry Gascoyne Maurice and other members of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, including for example the oceanographer Vagn Walfrid Ekman. This correspondence represents an archival discovery of the Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere in Lisbon, marking a decisive historical scientific moment for both Portuguese and international contexts in the field of marine sciences. This article aims to reconstruct Portugal’s internal and external networks.

A New Letter by Sara Coleridge

This article provides a discussion of a previously unpublished letter in the Keats House Collections written by Sara Coleridge, the poet and editor, and the only daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Presented here is the first transcription of the letter to be printed – addressed to the artist Samuel Laurence (sometimes Lawrence) – and an analysis of its contents in relation to Sara’s creative writing and life. The essay considers what the letter might be able to tell us about the author, her writing, her engagement with the arts, her position as a woman of letters in the late Romantic/early Victorian period in London, and her health, both physical and mental.

An Unpublished Letter from Voltaire to Dr John Carr, a Hertfordshire Headmaster

An Unpublished Letter from Voltaire to Dr John Carr, a Hertfordshire Headmaster

An Unpublished Letter from Maria Edgeworth to her Cousin and Aunt, during a Period of Grief at the Death of her Father, and after the Publication of Harrington (1817)

An Unpublished Letter from Maria Edgeworth to her Cousin and Aunt, during a Period of Grief at the Death of her Father, and after the Publication of <i>Harrington</i> (1817)

“My father says … my father says”: The collaboration between Sigmund and Anna Freud, James and Alix Strachey, when translating the Case Histories

ABSTRACT This paper tries to study the complexity of the personal and professional relationship between S. and A. Freud and A. and J. Strachey when they were translating Freud's Case Histories, starting with the years they spent in Vienna immediately after the end of the first world war being both in analysis with Freud and were checking the translations with him and his daughter. Those unique meetings according to me influenced even many aspects of Strachey SE later on and have still to be kept in mind even today as far as Mark Solms Revision of the SE is concerned. I also try to show the importance and the final control of the Strachey's translation exerted by E. Jones who had planned the Standard Edition of Freud' work already in 1920 and create a very rigid glossary in order to translate him which the Strachey's had to apply to their translations. I have used published and unpublished letters and notes on the translation to try to prove what I just stated.

Поздневизантийское духовное наставничество в письмах митрополита Халкидонского к монахине Евлогии

In Late Byzantium, spiritual correspondence served as a form of spiritual guidance. One form of imparting guidance was through correspondence between a spiritual father and a spiritual child. The 14 unpublished letters from the Metropolitan of Chalcedon to his spiritual daughter, nun Eulogia, found in the codex Paris, BnF, gr. 1372, ff. 155–170v, constitute the extant segment of spiritual correspondence during the Late Byzantine period. Selected by Eulogia herself and transcribed at her request, these letters evolved into a section of a collection of ascetic treatises designed for a monastic audience. The main theme of these little-studied letters is the exploration of Eulogia’s soul and her experience of monastic life. The Metropolitan serves as a vigilant supervisor meticulously noting even the subtlest emotional fluctuations of his correspondent. Within the epistolary narrative, the metropolitan performs a number of functions: therapeutic as a doctor, educational as a counsellor, prayerful as an intercessor before God, and reconciliatory as a mediator between God and Eulogia. The mentioned aspects are characteristic features in the depiction of a spiritual father in the Eastern Christian tradition. The article illustrates how employing these guiding models the spiritual father endeavors to regulate the emotional and physical experiences of his spiritual daughter. The hierarch emphasizes the necessity of struggle with depressive despair through daily confession before God and discourages the adoption of elevated hesychast practices. Furthermore, the hierarch revises the monastic rules of life advising Eulogia who is grappling with a physical ailment to exercise moderation in the number of prayers and genuflections, while also emphasizing the importance of maintaining a healthy balance in terms of food and sleep. Thus, the spiritual father serves as a regulator of ascetic practices demonstrating his desire to personalize Eulogia’s relationship with the sacred and to shape the most suitable path for her to experience monastic spiritual life. The spiritual letters themselves serve as instruments of influence as their function extends beyond communication and maintaining social connections. These spiritual messages are meant to be reread and comprehended during which the spiritual child was again and again immersed in the discourse of instructions.

The Nature of Her Business

Josephine Foster was doing her very best to feminize the wilderness. Sprinkling feminine imagery throughout her 1905 article for a women’s publication, she described the natural beauty of Glen Alpine Springs and encouraged her readers to discover for themselves the vacation pleasures of tramping in the mountains above Lake Tahoe, California. While Foster coaxed women into the wilds, another woman worked to keep them comfortable there. Throughout that summer, Foster hiked, climbed, and got tired, but at the end of the day, a warm bed and a hot meal awaited her because Katherine Chandler was back managing Glen Alpine Springs resort and taking good care of her guests. While women vacationing in the outdoors found freedom, female resort proprietors found opportunity. At a time when women faced limited choices in work outside the home, Katherine Chandler and other female resort proprietors found ways to turn traditional expectations of femininity to their advantage as businesswomen and outdoor enthusiasts. A collection of twenty unpublished letters written by Katherine Chandler, manager of Glen Alpine Springs to the resort’s owner, Susan Gilmore Pierce, forms the basis of this research. This essay knits together several strands in the historiographies of women in business, and women in the outdoors during the late Victorian and Progressive eras while contributing to the history of early tourism at Lake Tahoe.

Fünf noch unveröffentlichte Briefe Friedrich Nietzsches

Abstract Five Unpublished Letters by Friedrich Nietzsche. Five unpublished letters by Nietzsche to Louise Röder-Wiederhold, as well as an unknown letter (draft) from her own hand suggest that Nietzsche’s negative judgment of her, which has dominated biographical Nietzsche research up to now, was anything but definitive and can be strongly relativized. The new documents also prove that Röder-Wiederhold was not only a temporary “secretary” for Nietzsche, but also an intellectual and humorous, interested, compassionate and independent-thinking correspondence partner, even if she did not enter into a closer friendship with him. What particularly connected the two and remained an almost constant theme of their correspondence was the difficult life situation of their mutual friend, the unsuccessful composer Heinrich Köselitz, and how one could help him to get access to orchestras and opera stages in German-speaking countries which might perform his works.

«I Know You as a Venerable Scholar and a Great Connoisseur of Oriental Nationalities, a Defender of Their Interests in the Academic Field...». Scholars and Educators G. Rakhim and G. Saadi (Unpublished Letters to Academician V.V. Bartold (1927–1929))

The period from the late 19th to the first third of the 20th century witnessed a revival and advance of national science, culture, and art. It was also marked by a growing sense of national identity and a historical and cultural pursuit by the Tatar intelligentsia. In the 1920s, the formation and development of national humanities research in Kazan were driven by the efforts of dedicated Tatar scholars and educators. Among the most prominent figures were Gali Rakhim (Mukhametgali Mukhametshakirovich Gabdrakhimov) (1892–1943)–a writer, poet, literary historian, and folklorist, Gabdrakhman Saadi (Saadi Gabdrakhman Gainanovich (1889–1956)–a literary critic and orientalist. They were the pioneers of the Tatar Renaissance and contributed substantially to the development of scholarly studies in history, literature, linguistics, and archeography of the Turkic peoples, with a particular focus on the Tatar people. Engaged in solving a variety of problems, they were the encyclopedists who determined modern academic and pedagogical trends in many university and educational centers of Kazan during the 1920s. This article considers their previously unknown epistolary heritage: one letter of G. Rakhim (1927) and two letters of G. Saadi (1928 and 1929) to V.V. Bartold, an outstanding orientalist and academician, from his personal collection stored in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg Branch. These letters provide clear and strong evidence of the enduring professional and personal contacts between the Tatar scholars and leading Russian orientalists in the late 1920s.

Неизвестное письмо Евсея Шора Лейбу Яффе

This article is dedicated to the outstanding figure of Russian-Jewish culture, poet, translator, publisher, and prominent Zionist, Leib Jaffe. The author's main focus is on an unpublished letter from thehistorian of philosophy and culture, translator, and musicologist, Yevsey Shor, to Leib Jaffe. Jaffe and Shor most likely met in Russia, but their closer relationship developed after both repatriated to Palestine: Jaffe in 1920 and Shor in the late 1934. Shor's letter, dated to the first half of the 1940s, addresses the pressing issue of the spiritual tasks and prospects for the development of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The letter primarily reflects questions about the cultural shaping of the Israeli state before its official establishment.