Word: russianize
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Feodor Dostoevsky, then 51 and already famous as the author of Crime and Punishment, decided to become a newspaperman again. He had tried it before, without much success. In fact, journalism was a bad choice for a man who needed all the elbow room of the Russian novel for self-expression. But Dostoevsky felt full of miscellaneous ideas and Messianic urges, and besides, he needed the money. When the aristocratic and crotchety Prince Meshchersky offered him a job as editor of The Citizen (salary: 250 rubles a month), Dostoevsky accepted...
...rumpled gentleman but seldom succeeds in keeping up with his pace. Berlin himself observes that his audiences "first struggle desperately but then sink under, staring with glazed eyes." One intense lady became so desperate that she finally interrupted, "I'm sorry, Mr. Berlin, but I don't speak Russian...
Berlin, who is a philosopher by profession and a Fellow of New College, Oxford, arrived at Harvard in January on what he calls his experiment in General Education. He's lecturing on the "Development of Russian Revolutionary Ideas" in the Regional Studies Program and assisting at the Russian Research Center...
Although he is modest about it, Berlin is well qualified in Russian studies. He was born in the Baltic city of Riga in 1909 and learned the language there. He moved to England as a boy and went to college at Oxford, where he later became a member of the faculty. He returned to Russia in 1945, however, for a year as First Secretary at the British Embassy in Moscow. Before taking the Russian post, he was with the Ministry of Information in New York from 1941-42 and then moved to the Embassy in Washington as First Secretary...
Consequently, his course in Russian Revolutionary Thought is given in the afternoon. He says the course has been handicapped by the absence of English translations of important writings by nineteenth century revolutionists. "It's as if you tried to understand French Revolution knowing Diderot was in favor of science, Rousseau rather enthusiastic, Voltaire disliked Church--but all in Chinese, so can't bother with them...