Whatever comfort Catherine II derived from her husband's murder in 1762 was hardly enduring. Peter III's apparition was to rise again and again to plague his ambitious wife. Kremnev, Bogomolov, Khanin, and–above all–dread Pugačëv, were all possessed by the vengeful demon of Peter III. Catherine was forced to exorcise her spouse's ghost even outside of the realm which she had usurped–in little Montenegro! At first a source of vexation to the Russian Empress, this false Peter III became curiously involved in Russian plans in the Balkans during Catherine's first war with the Turks.

For purposes of appraising recent Soviet economic developments an important datum is the level of average money wages in the Soviet Union. This information is needed if we are to disclose successfully changes in Soviet real wages and to construct national economic accounts for the Soviet economy. In addition, a reasonably reliable picture of changes in the Soviet money wage level would reveal something about the considerations that have guided Soviet wage policy in this period. However, no official figures have been released on actual average earnings nor the actual, as distinct from the planned, wage bill for any year following 1940. This circumstance has led Western observers to attempt estimates of the Soviet wage level on the basis of admittedly inadequate data. A controversy has developed which is reflected in the rather wide range of estimates which have been advanced.

The first half of the twentieth century in Russia has been characterized by a sharp decline in the influence of religion. At the same time there has been an exceptionally rapid growth of industrialization and urbanization. The concomitance of these two processes favors the conclusion that urbanization has been, if not the exclusive, at least the major cause of religious decline. Relative to the majority of countries showing the same concomitance of processes, no serious doubt arises. The relationship between urbanization and decline of religion may be well understood, and no other major factor working in the same direction seems to be present. But, relative to Russia, the situation is different. Since the days of the Communist revolution, there has been another major force working in the same direction as urbanization, that is the systematic antireligious activity of the Government. The decline of religion in Russia, consequently, may be imputed to two concomitant causes.

The Slavic peoples of the Austrian Empire developed a labor movement which owed its character to two elements: the common problems of all workmen in their relationship to the dynasty, the aristocracy, the Church and the predominant German minority on the one hand, and the national aspirations of the Slavs on the other. It is the purpose of this paper to trace the influence of these two elements up to dismemberment of the Empire following the defeat of the Imperial armies in World War I.

In the heroic epos of the old times—Iranian, Greek, German, Russian—the personal element is closely interwoven with the national. The hero is a man with his own feelings, joys and sorrows, loves and hatreds. Collectively, however, all of these heroes represent their native land. Spiritually and physically, they personify the highest ideals of their respective peoples. Defense of their land against foreign intruders is their main task. And to them belongs the glory of the faraway campaigns against foreign enemies. In time of peace, former enemies may turn to friends, and the knights of both sides who formerly had fought against each other would now revel together. It may be said that the epos of any given people reflects not only the history of that particular people but also the history of its relations with its neighbors as well as the mentality of each side.

In a dismal village railway station, on November 7th, 1910, the rich life of Leo Tolstoy came to its melodramatic end. Several months later the Moscow Art Theater announced that rehearsals had begun on an unpublished play left by Tolstoy—“The Living Corpse,” better known in this country as “Redemption”.

At one time of my life I was connected with the Moscow Art Theater as executive assistant to Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, cofounder with Stanislavsky and director of the Art Theater, and it is from my memory of the play's opening and from my conversations with Nemirovich-Danchenko that I am able to reconstruct this history of the origin and production of “The Living Corpse.”