Notes

1. Onegin's novyj poryadok recalls the "novus ordo seclorum" found on the Great Seal of the United States, and hence on the dollar bill. The significance and revolutionary character of this passage should not be underestimated, despite the disclaimer that it is "just to pass the time"--no doubt a sop to the censor. Eugene had effectively converted his serfs to tenant farmers, and released ("quit") them from bondage to the soil and their feudal lord.‹-
2. Corvee: unpaid labour that a European vassal owed a lord or that a citizen in later times owed the state, either in addition to or in lieu of taxes.‹-
3. Steed: Russian "Don stallion." The Cossacks who lived on the Don were great horse fanciers. ‹-
4. Mason: The Christian Church generally disapproved of freemasonry.‹-
5. Without respect: his neighbors expected to have -s (short for "sudar", sir) appended to his "yea" and "nay" since he was the new kid on the block. ‹-
6. The kindred spirit is referred to in the feminine, since the word dushá is feminine in Russian; but the reference is to a male soulmate. ‹-
7. A snatch of a popular song--with an obvious message. ‹-
8. Prejudices: a cynical comment. We are naturally quite unprejudiced in rating ourselves over everyone else! Zero (nul') and one (yedinitsa) are a curiously prophetic prefiguration of digitization and its discontents. ‹-
9. Aye, aye: tak tochno means literally "just so", but is used in military parlance as the equivalent of "aye, aye, sir" addressed to a superior officer.‹-
10. The line including the phrase "habitual woe" is missing in the text I have been using. ‹-
11. Poor taste: Pushkin is here attacking mimicry of French mores in names, verse, and almost everything else. ‹-
12. Stanza XXVIII is perhaps the most beautiful in the entire poem, and displays magnificently the poet's gift, equalled only by Shakespeare's, lefi aniyyat da'áti as we say in Hebrew, "according to the poverty of my knowledge." Note how he follows this flight of fancy by a very matter-of-fact stanza. ‹-
13. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778): His novel Julie: ou la nouvelle Héloise (1761) dealing with a doomed love was an immense success.
    Samuel Richardson (1689-1761): popular novelist, author of Pamela (1740) and Clarissa (1748). ‹-
14. Grandison: a character in Richardson's The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1754).
    Lovelace: a character in Richardson's Clarissa. ‹-