First Russian Political Emigre

Michael R. Katz is C. V. Starr Professor of Russian Studies at Middlebury College, Vermont Natalia Pervukhina-Kamyshnikova is Professor of Russian at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville

• Introduction by Natalia Pervukhina-Kamyshnikova; First Memories, 1812; 1815, Odessa in Barracks; My Romance. Lipovets, Province of Kiev, 1821; Khmelnik, Podolsk Province, 1823; 1823-5; Episode from Petersburg Life, 1830-3; Memoirs from Beyond the Grave of Vladimir Pecherin, Sergei's Son (Memoires d'outre tombe); Dublin, 13 October 1865; Lugano and How I Wound Up There; As Bad as it Gets!; Zurich 1837-8; Flight from Zurich; Altkirch; Nancy; The Journey to Metz and the Ensuing Events; The Journey from Metz to Liege (or, as we say, Littikh); Liege; The Apostle of Communism and the Conspiration de Baboeuf; Story of Captain Fiott and his Valet; McNally and Co. (Illustrated Edition); The Turning Point; Fourdrain-Lekointe - Potosky; Dublin, 22 June 1871 (New Style); The Legend of the Monk and the Devil (from the Grand Menaion); George Sand; Michelet; The Religion of Saint-Simon; Dublin, 13 August 1871 (New Style); The Year 1840; Dublin, 10 November 1871; Liege, 1838-40; Liege, 1840; Admission into the Redemptorist Order (Liege, 1840); The Novitiate, 1840-1; Wittem, 1841-3; Dublin, 20 October 1872; The Move to England, 1844-5; Fear of Russia - The Novel of Life; Falmouth, 1845-8; Adieu, Falmouth!; London, 1 May 1848; London, From May to August 1848; London, 1848; Roehampton, 1851; 'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...'; Letter of V. S. Pecherin to the Superior General of the Redemptorist Order, N. Mauron. Desert and Freedom; Dublin, 13 October 1865; Dublin, 21 October 1865; 26 August 1873, Miltown Park; Selected Bibliography; Index.

"The memoirs and letters reveal a talented albeit self-conscious writer, relating an eventful and full life of which he can say in all seriousness 'under the influence of a lofty inspiration, I have conceived and constructed the long poem of my life and ... have maintained its complete unity'." Books Ireland Summer 2008 "This book, a translation from Russian, is also different from the norm. It is not a biography as such but rather the result of 61 years of reflection and self examination, a strict consideration of the present and nostalgia for the Russian past, all set in fifty separate reflections. It is introduced by Natalia Pervulkhina-Kamyshnikova, Professor of Russian at the University of Tennessee. - Pecherin's first thirty-one entries are, indeed, genuine memoirs which initially set down scenes from his childhood and adolescence and bring to vivid life existence in tsarist Russia ruled by Emperor Nicholas I who tried to employ the strictest measures to prevent any penetration of western European ideas into Russian society. Pecherin and his contemporaries, who harboured romantic ideas of freedom, justice and personal human value, were not prepared for censorship and police surveillance. Many of Pecherin's peers managed to conform to the new regime but Pecherin, who had travelled in Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland, could not accept the new state affairs, hence Katz's title 'The First Russian Political Aemigre'. - When he died in 1885, the Freeman's Journal said that he would be regretted for his 'great piety, unassuming demeanour, gentleness of disposition and charity.' It could also have recalled his sermons from the pulpit which were said to be spell-binding." Books Ireland December 2008 We are indebted to Michael Katz for exhuming these Notes from beyond the Grave, kept in the shade by the Tsarist censor, partially published in the USSR (in 1932 and again in 1989) and for the first time translated into English. The care brought to this critical edition retains the romantic spirit of a free thinker, as well as the beauty of his style. (Quotation translated from French). Cahiers du Monde russe 49/4