The Voice Over

4.  The White Guard fought the Bolshevik Red Army during the Russian Civil War (1918–1920). The actual reference here is to Igor Strelkov (real name Girkin), a warlord of Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and a vocal public figure during the active phase of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

5.  Chekist (historically, a member of Cheka, the first Soviet intelligence agency, which was formed in late 1917) can be a general reference to any member of the secret police or, by extension, any supporter of an oppressive regime. Banderite, or banderovets (historically, a follower of Stepan Bandera, a leader of the militant wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists active before, during, and after World War II) became a catch-word used by Russian media as well as in popular discourse in reference to active supporters of the 2013–2014 anti-government rallies in Ukraine (which resulted in the overthrow of the president) and, by extension, to all Ukrainians.

6.  Derogatory nicknames of various origin used in reference to Ukrainians (ukropy) and supporters of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (vatniki, kolorady).

7.  An allusion to the title of a book by Arkadii Belinkov, The Surrender and Death of the Soviet Intelligent: Yuri Olesha (Sdacha i gibel’ sovetskogo intelligenta: Yurii Olesha).

8.  A term from Boethius’s De institutione musica, here referring to its use by Alexander Blok in his historiosophical reflections.

AFTER THE DEAD WATER

1.  A reference to “Today Before Yesterday”: the first sections of the essay, not included in the translation published in this volume, deal with Russian poetic responses to World War I.

2.  On the use of the word “Banderite” see note 5 to “Today Before Yesterday.” Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) is the central square in Kyiv that became a site of a three-month anti-government rally in November 2013–February 2014.

3.  Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once an owner of a major Russian oil company, spent ten years in prison, nominally for economic crimes but allegedly for his disloyalty to Putin and his cronies. He was unexpectedly pardoned and released in December 2013.

4.  Parmesan was among many products whose import to Russia was banned in 2014 as part of the so-called “counter-sanctions”—the Russian government’s response to sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States, European Union, and some other countries following the Russian annexation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine.

5.  The name of a square in central Moscow, which was the site of several major opposition rallies in 2011–2012.

6.  A politically motivated criminal case (alleged mass riots) brought against a number of the participants in a rally on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow on May 6, 2012.

7.  See note 4 to “Today Before Yesterday.”

8.  Nestor Makhno was the leader of an anarchist army in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War; Huliaipole (literally “walk-about field”), the small town where he was born, became the center of an anarchist republic at that time.

9.  From Eduard Bagritsky’s narrative poem The Lay of Opanas (1926) set in Huliaipole during Makhno’s rule.

10.  An allusion to a phrase from the Russian translation of “The Internationale.”

11.  From Vladimir Mayakovsky’s narrative poem About That (1923).

12.  From Alexander Blok’s narrative poem Retribution (1910–1921).

INTENDING TO LIVE

1.  Pavel Milyukov was a liberal politician and one of the leaders of the Constitutional Democratic party in pre-revolutionary Russia. Vitaly Milonov is a contemporary politician best known for his legislative initiatives against the LGBT community. Alexei Navalny is a prominent leader of political protests in the 2010s. The Union of the Russian People was a right-wing nationalist organization active in 1905–1917, which was notorious for its antisemitism. Nashisty are members of the youth organization Nashi (Ours), which was created with the support of Putin’s administration in 2005 and was used over the years as a tool of pro-government youth politics and as an organizer of campaigns targeting political opposition and significant cultural figures.

2.  An allusion to Pushkin’s 1834 poem “It’s time, my friend, it’s time!” (“Pora, moi drug, pora!”).

3.  Pushkin’s duel, in which he was mortally wounded, took place in the outskirts of St. Petersburg, near the Black River (Chernaya Rechka). One of his last requests before he died, two days after the duel, was for cloudberries.

4.  The opening line of a poem by Stanislav Krasovitsky (“Ne sadis’ udobnee”).

5.  From Tsvetaeva’s “The New Year’s” (“Novogodnee,” 1927), a poem written shortly after Rilke’s death and addressed to him.