Prince Serebrenni

Prince Serebrenni is a historical novel by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, written in 1859-1861 and first published in The Russian Messenger magazine in 1862 (Nos. 8-10, August–October issues) where it was divided into parts I (chapters 1-19, in No. 8) and II (chapters 20-40, Nos. 9 and 10). Translated by Princess Galitzine for Chapmann & Hall, it came out in English in 1874. Prince Serebrenni (also known as The Silver Knight, according to the alternative translation), a novel about 16th-century Russia, inspired by the works of Sir Walter Scott and the German Romantics, has become a popular young adult novel in Russia. Acknowledging its limits as a historical document, critics invariably praised the way it "imbued the readership with the ideas of justice, honesty, nobleness and human dignity." Background Aleksey Tolstoy had been for years intrigued by the theme which became the book's leitmotif: that of a struggle between Ivan the Terrible, the most cruel of all Russian monarchs, and boyarstvo, a community of high-ranked aristocrats who opposed the Tsar and his tyranny, largely carried out by the Oprichniki. Several of his poems and ballads, notably, Vasily Shibanov and Knyaz Mikhailo Repnin, were investigating this historical dilemma. The death of Nikolai I and the emergence of the new atmosphere of openness prompted Tolstoy to set upon working on the novel about the disaster the absolute monarchy might bring. History Tolstoy started working on Prince Serebrenni in the late 1840s. Several sources reported that in the course of his Kaluga mission alongside senator Davydov, Tolstoy read the novel to Alexandra Smirnova-Rossette and Nikolai Gogol. It was there and then (according to P.A.Kulish) that Gogol told Tolstoy about a folk song "Master Panteley Walks About in the Yard" which has been promptly installed into the plot. According to N.Kolmakov, senator Davydov's senior aide, the novel by this time had been finished. If so, this could apply only to its very first, rough version.