Our Notes & References

First publication of perhaps the most famous work by Kuprin, “among the most successful Russian writers between 1900 and the revolution” (Terras).

The novel describes the events leading up to the duel between young officer Romashkov and a higher ranked officer, due to Romashkov’s affair with the latter’s wife. The novel touches on several recurring themes of 19th and early 20th century Russian realist fiction. Namely, Kuprin highlights the stifling atmosphere of military life in provincial Russia, the fraught relationship between individual ideals and collective compromises, and ultimately the meaning and value of human life when confronted with the pettiness of everyday experiences.

The Duel was highly valued by critics soon after its publication in 1905. During the same year of the publication, Russia lost the war to Japan, which made the majority of critics perceive Kuprin’s work in this context due to its critique of Russian military ideals. Tolstoy commented: ‘I should better not have read it. Very hard’.

Alongside The Duel, which takes almost 300 pages, the present volume holds verses and prose by three celebrated Russian authors of those years: the famous Russian and Soviet writer Maxim Gorky; the Nobel prize winner Ivan Bunin, who rose to fame in his later years of emigration; as well as Stepan Skitalets (Stepan Petrov), poet and folk musician.

The ‘Znanie’ Society, set up by members of the Literacy Committee under K.P. Piatnitski in 1898, was reorganised by Gorky after his first great success, and began releasing these ‘Collections’ in 1904. Lenin wrote that in them Gorky himself tried ‘to concentrate the best forces of creative literature’. The almanacs also featured Chekhov (incl. the first publication of his Cherry Orchard, Yushkevitch, Andreev and Gorky himself. In the reactionary atmosphere after the revolutions of 1905, many of its members quit the Society, which had always been inclined towards the revolutionary and contentious, and Gorky broke off his connection with the publication in 1912 while living abroad.

Provenance

D.E. (gilt Cyrillics letters to spine foot); Suren Melik-Stepanyan (library label to upper pastedown, stamp to title page).

Bibliography

Terras 474.