An Unknown Letter from Natalya Pushkina to Nicholas I

This article relays information about documents found in the archive of the Ministry of Finance of Russia, providing evidence about Pushkin widowʼs address to the Tsar for financial help. In addition to this, there is an unpublished letter dated July 1844 that includes her request to preserve the pension she had previously been assigned. The result of this letter was an unknown decree, which revised the size of the poetʼs childrenʼs pension.

A Previously Unpublished Letter of Introduction by an Andalusi Karaite (T-S 8J41.7)

The document published in this article is a letter of introduction written by a Karaite Andalusi Jew upon his arrival to Egypt, on his route to Jerusalem. The text, which was deposited in the Cairo Genizah, is currently held at Cambridge University Library in the Taylor-Schechter Collection (Genizah Research Unit). Although undated, the text has the distinction of being the only known letter written by an Andalusi who presents himself as a Karaite, and is thus a first-person confirmation of the presence of this religious group in al-Andalus.

The Suppression of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers: An Unpublished Letter from Lord Holland to Samuel Rogers

This article faithfully reproduces a letter from Lord Holland to Samuel Rogers, including deletions, hyphenated words, underlines, and paragraphs, to evidence how Samuel Rogers interceded in the suppression of a fifth edition of Byron’s English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Rogers’s knowledge of the publishing market, its publishing houses and successful authors, made him one of the most formidable and important of Byron’s acquaintances and contemporaries in the 1810s. This article demonstrates the important role of Rogers as an individual whose political negotiations and literary advice impacted the literary landscape of the Romantic period. The decision to suppress the fifth edition of English Bards also shows how Byron navigated literary and political opinion, as well as the role of sociability in the production and genetics of literary text. Professional authorship in the Romantic period was performed within this context of social networks.

AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER OF SAMSU-ILUNA KING OF BABYLON

This short letter of Samsu-iluna (1749–1712 B.C), king of Babylon, is preserved in the Slemani Museum, along with a number of other Old Babylonian documents. The article gives a brief overview of the letters of Samsu-iluna. The short letter appears to be addressed to one Ipqu-Gula, who may be a šassukkum-official (the head of the cadastre-office) from Isin. The article presents a copy, transliteration, translation of and commentary on this cuneiform document, which adds to the small number of letters sent directly by Samsu-iluna that are currently available.

Perceiving relations directly: An invitation

Unpublished letter in response to Hafri, A., & Firestone, C. (2021). The perception of relations. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2021.01.006

Lawyers’ Tricks, or What Did the Dostoevskys Get from the Sale of the Tula Estate

The article deals with the history of the sale of the real estate property belonging to A. F. Kumanina, the Moscow aunt of F. M. Dostoevsky, in the Tula province. The division of the property received by her heirs after her death was to be carried out after their entry into the ownership of the estates: first Tula, then Smolensk and Ryazan, which were pledged. Lawyers played a criminal role in this process. They developed an illegal scheme during the division and sale of the house and land plot in Tula, which predetermined the fate of the Kumanin inheritance, most of which was spent on paying debts, arrears and attorney fees. In connection with the inheritance case, F. M. Dostoevsky sought legal assistance from V. P. Gaevsky, V. I. Veselovsky, B. B. Polyakov, V. I. Gubin, E. V. Korsh, A. V. Lokhvitsky, V. I. Lustikh. The facts testifying to the unseemly role of the attorneys, which ultimately led to the unexpected outcome of the “Kumanin story”, are presented in the memoirs and correspondence of the writer’s brother Andrey Mikhailovich. They are also indicated in the correspondence of the other heirs of A. F. Kumanina, including F. M. Dostoevsky and his closest relatives, who tried to regain the right to own hereditary estates, as well as the materials of the genealogic inventory of N. S. Lazarev-Stanishchev, who became one of the participants in the “Kumanin inheritance” scam. The Appendix contains a previously unpublished letter from D. A. Smirnov, assistant to attorney V. I. Veselovsky in the “case of the Kumanin inheritance”, to A. M. Dostoevsky dated February 10, 1874 about the sale of the Kumanin house in Tula.

Letter of King Hugh IV of Cyprus and its Interpretation in the 17th-Century Russian Literature

This article contains two sources concerning the history of Russia and Cyprus: an unknown and previously unpublished letter of King Hugh IV of Lusignan of Cyprus to Giovanna, Queen of Naples, and a work of an unknown Russian author of the seventeenth century about the victory of the Cypriot Christian army over the Turks. A textual and comparative analysis of both sources carried out in the article proves a borrowing of information by the Russian author from the letter of the Cypriot king. The work of the anonymous author is an almost liberal literary translation of Hugh’s letter. At the same time, the Russian translator did not borrow the plot of the letter directly, but most likely through later Cypriot literature, in which the story told by the Cypriot king was probably extremely popular. The events of the history of Cyprus of different times intertwine in the Russian text in order to show the heroic past of Cyprus. The Russian author dates his story to 552 and connects it with Emperor Justinian I, the most revered and heroic Byzantine ruler. He cannot separate the history of Cyprus from the history of Byzantium, just as the Cypriot and Greek-Byzantine authors of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries could not do it. However, both texts speak of Latin Crusaders, who are fighting against the Turks under the leadership of the King of Cyprus. The Russian author remains faithful to the Orthodox tradition of rejection of the idea of crusades and replaces the idea of martyrdom of a crusader in the name of the Lord with heroic battle scenes traditional for Russian literature. He acknowledges that warriors are fighting for the Christian faith and for the church but denies the idea of guaranteed salvation and eternal life for military feats. At the end of the article, the full text of the letter of Hugh IV of Lusignan based on a manuscript of the fifteenth century kept in the manuscript department of the Bavarian State Library is published.

UNPUBLISHED LETTER N.M. KARAMZIN TО E.A. PROTASOVA (BORN BUNINA)

Currently, with the financial support of the RFBR, the project "Karamzin and his entourage" is being implemented for the first time - a consolidated collection of personal information about contemporaries with whom N.M. Karamzin communicated throughout his life. The creation of such a reference book is necessary to restore the real picture of N.M. Karamzin, to compile the chronicle of his life and work. The richest source of the necessary data is the epistolary N.M. Karamzin, which makes it possible to expand, clarify, and detail also information about those who directly communicated with the historiographer or corresponded with him. Many of the letters from Karamzin have not yet been published. The lines from the letter of N.M. Karamzin is an addition to the love story of V.A. Zhukovsky to Maria Andreevna Protasova. The study was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research within the framework of the scientific project No. 19-012-00292 A “N.М. Karamzin and his entourage".