Letters to the Editor

To the Editors:

As pointed out in your March/April article, the Russian Museum’s main entrance in the Mikhailovsky Palace is indeed serene, but the photograph on page 55 is in fact the entrance to the museum’s Mikhailovsky Castle (mentioned later as the St Michael’s Engineer’s Castle), a grand and handsome building, but not serene:  it was the place where its founder the Emperor Paul was murdered in 1801. It’s easy for somebody unfamiliar with the buildings to confuse these names.

But I’m sorry your correspondent had insufficient space to say much about the museum’s famous holdings of the stunning artists of the early twentieth century (whose work is currently enthralling visitors to the “From Russia” exhibition at the Royal Academy in London).  Although Kandinsky, Malevich, Konchalovsky, Filonov, Chagall and Bakst get a mention, the equally exciting Altman, Vrubel, Petrov-Vodkin, Grigoriev, Mashkov and Lentulov do not. As no work of this period is reproduced in the article – and this outstanding group of artists is omitted from the article’s survey of the Collection – perhaps you could consider a follow-up?

Yours,

Susan Causey

London

To the Editors :

As a student of Russian in my youth, I was told by my teachers that those who think that the word медведь means мёд ведает were wrong. 

Slavic languages are Indo-European. A bear, before the written era, was called  “BER,” but as with the devil, one should not name a feared being, lest it might appear. To avoid saying the dangerous word, people called the animal “the honey eater.” 

I was surprised to read your interpretation (Survival Russian, Mar/Apr 2008) as “мёд ведает,” so I checked three Etymological Dictionaries, and there it is : 

Shansky : медведь = буквально медоед = мед едящий   (u  перед  ě > в). Общеслав. Сложение  медв < medu  и  едь < ědь

Tsyganenko : Соврем. форма сущ. медведь развилась из *meduēdis: medu «мед» + ēdis “едящий.” Звук u перед гласным ē стал звучать как v [в]

Uspensky : медведь   Образовалось еще в общеславянском языке из  “мед” и “ед” — “медoед,” для замены запретоного “настоящего” имени этого зверя.

Elena Carducci

Montréal