Eugene Onegin

Acknowledgements

I should like to thank the following for their help: Peter Carson, my editor for his constant scrutiny; Nina Zhutovsky (St. Petersburg) who cleared up every mistake; Robert Chandler for his devotion and counsel; Angela Livingstone for her careful reading and improvements; Ruth Pavey for her pertinent comments; Carla and Dan Mitchell for their common sense; the late Hannah Mitchell for her enthusiasm and encouragement; Leonid Arinshtein (Moscow) for his suggestions; Yu D. Levin (Moscow) for his criticism; Sergei Bocharov (Moscow) for his advice about the map; Martin Thom for his clarification of the role of the Carbonari in my Introduction; PKS Architects and the Art History Department of University College, London for the use of their photocopy facilities; Tom Dale Keever for sending me an audiotape of Innokentii Smoktunovsky reading Eugene Onegin. In retrospect, I am grateful to the late Isaiah Berlin and John Bayley for having blessed my very first stanza.

I thank the following for their warm support throughout my work on Onegin: Antony Wood, Natalia Mikhailova (Deputy Director of the Pushkin Museum, Moscow), Nicholas Jacobs, Dmitry Gutov (Moscow) and Gina Barker. Above all, I am indebted more than I can say to Barbara Rosenbaum for her love of the poem and her unstinting efforts to ensure that my translation was poetic. Whether it is or not is my responsibility not hers.

Stanley Mitchell