INTRODUCTION: BELYĬ’S PETERSBURG AND MOSCOW MATHEMATICIANS

Abstract: The political doctrines of the 
 The present study is part of the history of Russian science in its relation to political life, as well as a contribution to our understanding of one of the greatest Russian writers. 

In the nineteenth century the traditional Christian hostility to the Jews evolved to become a network of scientific and historical theories providing a purportedly solid basis for political and ideological speculations. Jewish influence became the object of ever increasing scrutiny, with its signs apparently ubiquitous. They were compiled and summarized by Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855 – 1927) in his Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (1899) in which the course of world history is viewed as the product of a struggle between the noble Aryans and vicious Semites. This mystical conception of history recruited many believers. Sinister proofs of the Jews prevailing over the Aryans were found in political developments, as well as in the state of arts, sciences and education. What follows pertains to the history of this mindset.

1.
	
The subject of this book is the union of mysticism and politics in Russian intellectual ideology at the turn of the twentieth century, but the thrust of research is two-pronged: it addresses controversial chapters in the history of Russian mathematics as well as Russian literature through the analysis of a connected problem in one of the most abstruse masterpieces of early twentieth century Russian prose.
The action of Andreĭ Belyĭ’s (1880 – 1934) novel Petersburg (1913) takes place during the first Russian revolution and its aftermath: terrorists, with a diabolical Jew as the principal actor, plot to assassinate a conservative senator; his son gets involved in the plot. Throughout the novel we are repeatedly reminded of the senator’s passion for geometry. Most importantly, his thoughts of the ideal state are infused with geometrical imagery.

During Belyĭ’s lifetime, Petersburg came out in three different Russian versions: the first, completed in 1913, appeared in three installments in the literary miscellany Sirin (1913 – 1914, reprinted as a separate edition in Petrograd in 1916); the second, considerably abridged, was brought out in Berlin by the Russian publishing house “Epokha” in 1922; the third by “Nikitinskie subbotniki” in Moscow in 1928.
Besides, Belyĭ specially revised the first version for the German translation of Petersburg, published by Georg Müller press in Munich in 1919.
I used the “Sirin” text edited by L. K. Dolgopolov: Andreĭ Belyĭ, Peterburg (Sankt-Peterburg: Nauka, 2004). Since there are no considerable differences in what concerns the theme of geometry between the “Sirin” and the “Berlin” versions, I shall use the English translation of the latter by Robert A. Maguire and John E. Malmstad, with slight variations: Andrei Bely, Petersburg (Bloomington – London: Indiana University Press, 1978).

See Appendix 1.

Much of Belyĭ’s novel is autobiographical. The main inspiration behind the senator was Belyĭ’s father, the mathematician Nikolaĭ Vasil’evich Bugaev (1837 – 1903), dean of the physical-mathematical faculty of Moscow University and president of the Moscow Mathematical Society. The link between his profession and the senator’s geometrical meditations must have seemed too obvious to deserve attention, and the meaning of this link was thus never explored. 
That it should be explored, however, is immediately apparent from an article about Bugaev (1927) written by the mathematician Veniamin Fedorovich Kagan (1869 – 1953) for the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, volume 7. The following passage catches one’s eye:
“<Bugaev> together with his disciples, Prof. P.A. Nekrasov being the most active among them, created in Moscow a whole philosophical school of strongly metaphysical character that had a considerable influence not only among mathematicians, but also in the wider circles of Moscow scientists. Some of the members of the “school” established a link between these philosophical views and the political ones of a glaringly reactionary quality [i͡arko reaktsionnogo svoĭstva].”

V. Kagan, “Bugaev Nikolaĭ Vasilĭevich,” in Bol’shai͡a Sovetskai͡a Èntsiklopedii͡a, T. 7 (Moskva, 1927), 770.

Even Marxist encyclopedias do not usually include any information about political views of mathematicians. The very fact that Kagan found it necessary to mention politics, and reactionary politics at that, in connection with Bugaev, suggests that the latter’s transformation into a conservative senator in Petersburg had more to it than Belyĭ’s mere whim. Just as Ableukhov’s love for geometry is not comprehensible without taking into account the profession of Belyĭ’s father, the senator’s conservatism is linked to the same profession. A commentary on the geometrical passage of Petersburg requires the study of an ideological trend which emerged among Moscow mathematicians: the attempt to provide a mathematical foundation for ultra-conservative doctrines, of which anti-Semitism was an integral part.

The political views of Belyĭ’s father and their relationship to those of Belyĭ, which is of vital import for the understanding of the latter’s works, have never been studied. On Bugaev’s mathematical conceptions as important for Belyĭ, see, in particular, works by Lena Szilard: Germetizm i germenevtika (Sankt-Peterburg.: Izd. Ivana Limbakha, 2002), 283 – 295; “‘Novai͡a matematika’ i ‘filosofii͡a matematiki’ v Istorii stanovlenii͡a samosoznai͡ushcheĭ dushi: Aspekty aritmologii i kombinatoriki,” Russian Literature 70: 1/2 (2011), 137 – 157.

2.

The ideology in question has not completely died out. Its traces are still discernible among contemporary Moscow mathematicians, a fact that indicates the historical significance of our subject.
Testimony to this continuity is, for instance, an apologetic volume on the life and activities of the publisher of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Sergeĭ Nilus, printed in 1995 by one of the most prolific authors on the history of the Moscow Mathematical Society, himself a graduate of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow University, Sergeĭ Polovinkin. The main focus of his studies on the Society are the philosophical, religious and political views of its members. It will be noted that some of their works testify to an attentive reading of the Protocols, belong to the same ideological frame of reference, and are impossible to understand without taking this into account. Interestingly, Polovinkin, who, given his knowledge of Nilus, can hardly be unaware of this, never alludes to the Protocols in his writings on the Society, nor does he ever speak of anti-Semitism in those writings.

Sergeĭ Polovinkin, ed., Sergeĭ Aleksandrovich Nilus (1862 – 1929) (Moskva: Izd. Spaso-Preobrazhenskogo Valaamskogo monastyri͡a, 1995).

See, primarily, “O studencheskom matematicheskom kruzhke pri moskovskom matematicheskom obshchestve v 1902 – 1903 gg.,” IMI 30 (1986), 148 - 158; “Moskovskai͡a filosofsko-matematicheskai͡a shkola (obzor),” Referativnyĭ zhurnal. Obshchestvennye nauki v SSSR. Serii͡a 3. Filosofii͡a 2 (1991), 43 – 67; “Psikho-aritmo-mekhanik (filosofskie cherty portreta P.A. Nekrasova),” Voprosy istorii estestvoznanii͡a i tekhniki 2 (1994), 109 – 113. See also his book P.A. Florenskiĭ. Logos protiv khaosa (Moskva: Znanie, 1989).

This apology of Nilus by a devoted historian of Moscow mathematics provides us with a direct link between the ideological concerns of the Moscow mathematicians of the past and those of the present. 
The political writings of another graduate of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow University, the eminent mathematician Igor Shafarevich, made him known far beyond professional mathematical circles. His anti-Semitic essay Russophobia (published in 1989) provoked a scandal that culminated in the US National Academy of Sciences asking him in 1992 to resign his membership. The conceptual core of Russophobia is constituted by a theory of two conflicting peoples within one state, a “small” one and a “big” one, the former undermining traditional values of the latter and posing a threat to the stability of the state. Shafarevich referred to the historian Augustin Cochin (1876 – 1916) who formulated this theory in his analysis of the French revolution. Cochin’s “small people” consisted of members of the “societies of thought [les societés de pensée],” notably the Freemasons, advertising liberal values in the period preceding the 1789. While containing some interesting and original features, Cochin’s analysis of the French revolution was at the same time rooted in the reactionary ideology of his time. Whatever the distance between Cochin, who was a serious historian, and the fabricators of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, they share ideological concerns: the importance attached to Freemasonry and, more generally, to the spread of “abstract” liberal ideas  presented as responsible for the horrors of revolutionary destruction and the subsequent victory of depersonalized democratic regimes.

See Françoit Furet, Penser la Révolution française (Gallimard, 1978), 257 – 316.

Prompted by Rightist beliefs and, most likely, by Rightist vocabulary as well, it was not difficult for Shafarevich to render Cochin’s scheme anti-Semitic by identifying the latter’s “small people” (or “small state,” another of Cochin’s expressions which in this context inevitably reminds one of the “state within the state” accusation repeatedly emerging in the anti-Semitic tracts) with the Jews.

See below,

Shafarevich denied the allegations of anti-Semitism. The remarkable aversion of some anti-Semites to the word “anti-Semitism” makes them resort to word juggling (e.g., that Arabs are Semites, too) which is tedious to analyze. Nevertheless, partly as the result of this juggling, the controversy over Shavarevich’s writings is far from over. Recently, a volume of more than 500 pages has been brought out purporting to demonstrate that Shafarevich is not an anti-Semite.

Krista Berglund, The Vexing Case of Igor Shafarevich, a Russian Political Thinker (Springer Basel, 2012).

The combination of mathematics, politics, ultra-nationalism and anti-Semitism was present in Moscow as early as the beginning of the twentieth century, and future historians may endeavor to trace how this tradition was passed down within Moscow mathematician circles. The case of Shafarevich cannot be adequately appraised without considering the political engagement of his distant predecessors, whether he is aware of them or not: the professional atmosphere that informed his views had a history, and this history started at the turn of the last century.

Along with Shafarevich, who has written a second anti-Semitic volume entitled Trekhtysi͡acheletni͡ai͡a zagadka (Sankt-Peterburg: Bibliopolis, 2002), the outstanding Moscow mathematician Lev Semenovich Pontri͡agin (1908 – 1988) is an obvious example of adherence to the same school of thought. See his Zhizneopisanie L’va Semenovicha Pontri͡agina, matematika, sostavlennoe im samim (Moskva: IChP “Prima B,” 1998).

The ideology of the Moscow mathematical circle of that period is thus not extinct. It continues to exist in one form or another, and this effects in retrospect our perception of the texts where we encounter it. Odd writings emanating from Moscow mathematicians of former times are not merely precious historical material sealed off in the past. They help to explain the peculiar combination of mathematics and anti-Semitism that still persists.

3.

Due to the great achievements of Russian mathematicians in the twentieth century, the Moscow Mathematical Society is known all over the world. Numerous works have been written on the history of the Society. Very naturally, it has been a field for historians of mathematics. It is equally natural that their studies have touched on more than just the history of mathematics. Owing to the singular preoccupation of some Moscow mathematicians with the idea of making their discipline the foundation for all human knowledge, the materials related to the Society are often valuable for historians of a number of other subjects, such as philosophy, education, sociology and theology. The journal Istoriko-matematicheskie issledovanii͡a [Historical-mathematical studies], regularly publishing documents and research on Moscow mathematicians, turns out to be an unexpectedly valuable source for students of Russian culture at the turn of the twentieth century. Much of what was printed there has helped me in the present study,even though my approach is entirely different, being focused on a theme which has never been given much thought or attention.
The main fact that the present book examines with is very well-known. The staunch monarchism of Moscow mathematicians is frequently mentioned in studies, which may have  contributed to the general neglect of the subject, by its acquiring a deceptive air of familiarity, as if common knowledge. At a conference on the intellectual framework of modern mysticism, held in St. Petersburg in September 2010, Loren Graham, one of the authors of a recent book on Moscow mathematics, Naming Infinity: a True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity (2009), expressed his surprise at my attempt to reconstruct the ideology of Bugaev’s circle, saying that their monarchism was among the first things that he had heard about them. As usual, the commonplace word “monarchism” conceals its fluctuating historical meanings, and glosses over the different kinds of monarchism. One of the aims of my book is to reconstruct those aspects of the Moscow mathematical circle’s monarchism that are of specific ideological significance. The picture obtained as a result will be very different from present conceptions about the milieu of Moscow mathematicians.
A trivial idea of their views is exemplified by the book of Graham and Kantor. The book aims at reconstructing an abstruse aspect of the Moscow mathematicians’ intellectual divagations. We learn that certain important mathematical conceptions developed by the disciples of Bugaev, the brilliant mathematicians Nikolaĭ Nikolaevich Luzin (1883 – 1950) and Dmitriĭ Fedorovich Egorov (1869 – 1931) reflect their involvement with the mystical movement of onomatodoxy, or Name Worshiping [imi͡aslavie]. This involvement served as one of the pretexts of their persecution under the Soviet regime: they were accused of mixing mathematics with mysticism. Egorov died in exile. Pavel Aleksandrovich Florenskiĭ (1882 – 1937), another disciple of Bugaev, was shot. Luzin narrowly escaped the same fate. The charges pressed against them sound as fantastic as many others of the same period. But, as Naming Infinity shows us, in a way they were not unfounded. These mathematicians were indeed mystics, and their mysticism was linked with their mathematics.
The neglect by Graham and Kantor of one vital theme in their book is disappointing. Although the topic of mysticism forced the authors to reconstruct areas of thought far beyond mathematical problems, they omitted the relationship between the mysticism of Moscow mathematicians and their politics. However, modern mysticism is rarely separable from political thinking, and therefore is difficult to comprehend without reference to it. Moscow mathematicians were no exception. The description of the intellectual atmosphere of Bugaev’s circle proposed in Naming Infinity is thus inadequate.

There is an account of the history of the persecution of the Name Worshipers both before and after the October revolution, but still there is almost nothing about the political component of their mystical beliefs.

A striking example of this link is Mme Blavatsky's letter to a general of the Russian Imperial Corps of the Gendarmes, in which she proposed her services as a spy, indicating that her involvement with spiritualism placed her in an advantageous position for obtaining secret information (B.L. Bessonov and V.I. Mil’don, eds., “Pis’mo Blavatskoĭ,” Literaturnoe obozrenie 6 (1988), 110 – 112; this letter was brought to my attention by Omry Ronen).

This omission of politics reflects a general trend in the representation of the Moscow Mathematical Society. Political issues are analyzed only in connection with its later history. A good example is afforded by an excellent book Delo akademika Nikolai͡a Nikolaevicha Luzina([The case of the academician Nikolaĭ Nikolaevich Luzin], 1999) which contains rich archival material concerning the ideological campaign of 1936 directed against Luzin and its political context. The material on the history of the Moscow Mathematical Society of the early twentieth century is of no less importance for the history of ideology. Yet the historical data is never considered from this point of view, as if politics became relevant to the affairs of the Mathematical Society only with the coming of the Soviet regime, which imposed its absurd ideology on scientists otherwise worlds away from political issues.
Mysticism was not the only charge leveled against the Moscow mathematicians in Soviet times. They were also accused of subscribing to the ideology of the Black Hundred. The latter was the extreme right-wing monarchist organization involved in pogroms and other acts of violence. Just like the accusation of mysticism, probably even more so, this accusation appears at first glance to be absurd. In writings on the Moscow Mathematical Society we find almost nothing about its connection with any related ideology. Thus nothing blurs the beautiful image recurrent in works on the Society: the image of a brilliant scientific community embodying the general flourishing of Russian culture at that time. As they consider the moral character of their heroes, Graham and Kantor mention Florenskiĭ’s attitude towards the Jews in a very characteristic way. We are told that Florenskiĭ “was probably, in some of his writings, anti-Semitic,” which implies that even if there are some anti-Semitic remarks to be found in his works, his general views were different. Naming Infinity is a laborious attempt at white-washing a rather violent ideology as enlightened mysticism. One of the obvious factors behind such representations of the Moscow Mathematical Society is the memory of the macabre ideological campaigns of the late 1920s and 1930s. “The most extreme obscurantism [mrakobesie] under the guise of pure science” was prominent on the list of the characteristic features of the so-called “Moscow philosophic-mathematical school” in the Soviet ideological discourse. In the post-Soviet period the evaluations were reversed with even less factual evidence.

See, for example, S.S. Demidov and B.V. Levshin, eds., Delo akademika Nikolai͡a Nikolaevicha Luzina (Sankt-Peterburg: RKHGI, 1999), 18, 21, 35, 65, 82, 96, 99 etc.

Thus, S.S. Demidov mentions the Soviet characterization of the Moscow mathematicians, which indicated their connection with the Black Hundred, as a “label [i͡arlyk]”: Sergeĭ S. Demidov, “O matematike v tvorchestve P.A. Florenskogo,” in P.A. Florenskiĭ i kul’tura ego vremeni.  177.
The important exception is Oscar Sheynin’s studies on P.A. Nekrasov. See Oscar B. Sheynin, “Nekrasov’s Work on Probability: The Background,” Archive for History of Exact Sciences 57 (2003), 343; O.B. Sheĭnin, “Publikatsii A.A. Markova v gazete ‘Den’ za 1914 – 1915 gg.,” IMI 34 (1993), 196; M.V. Chirikov and O.B. Sheĭnin, “Perepiska P.A. Nekrasova i K.A. Andreeva,” ibid. 35 (1994), 124. For the English translation of these articles, see http://www.sheynin.de/download/2_Russian%20Papers%20History.pdf, 63 – 69; 70 – 82. For Nekrasov’s reactionary views, see also materials collected, translated and commented by Oscar Sheynin in P.A. Nekrasov, Theory of Probability: http://www.sheynin.de/download/5_Nekrasov.pdf, 2, 55 – 64.

Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Kantor, Naming Infinity: A True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity (Cambridge, Massachusetts – London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009), 196. In the French edition of this book the phrase was changed, and the passages on anti-Semitism as a marked feature of the Bugaev circle were added: Au nom de l’infini: une histoire vrai de mysticisme religieux et de création mathématique (Paris: Belin, 2010), 252, 90 – 91, 95 – 96. These changes followed our correspondence with Jean-Michel Kantor, not mentioned in the text. On Florenskiî’s anti-Semitism see Michael Hagemeister’s works cited below, n. 18, 360

As an example one may cite the following presentation of P.A. Nekrasov’s views: “On account of Nekrasov’s close connection with the Tsarist régime <…>, his deeply conservative and religious views, his somewhat erratic mathematical writings from about 1900, his espousal of a connection between religion and mathematics, and of course his conflicts and controversies with Markov, the better probabilist, led the Communist régime to denigrate him as an eccentric and brand him as a reactionary” (Eugene Seneta, “Statistical Regularity and Free Will: L.A.J. Quetelet and P.A. Nekrasov,” International Statistical Review 71: 2 (2003), 320). The point is, however, that Nekrasov was indeed a reactionary, and the one of the deepest dye.

It is not my purpose to deconstruct representations of Bugaev’s circle, but the more one studies the history of the Moscow Mathematical Society, the less one can preserve such an attractive picture of its activities outside its professional field. My purpose is to demonstrate that the ideology of some Moscow mathematicians is valuable for a historian of ideas less as part of a cultural renaissance, and more as a tangle of symptomatic delusions. By unraveling them we get into a strange intellectual universe where allusions to an imaginary Pythagorean tradition are combined with the most pressing issues of contemporaneous politics. The accusation that the Moscow mathematicians shared the Black Hundred’s ideology was not groundless. Moreover, just as the mysticism of some mathematicians was deeply connected with their scientific ideas, there existed in the same circle a close link between extremely reactionary political views and mathematics.
A considerable part of this book is going to deal with anti-Semitism in the latter half of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. Although the role of anti-Semitic ideology in the culture of that time is generally recognized, much work remains to bring this general recognition to bear on individual facts that may elude our understanding if we fail to notice their deep immersion in this ideological climate. Merely a general notion of this climate cannot give us the knowledge of the separate elements forming it. At the same time, neglecting these elements would reduce certain crucial beliefs to the status of commonplaces, or epiphenomena of no consequence.

The significance of this topic for our understanding of contemporary Russian culture has been amply demonstrated in the works by Mikhail Bezrodnyĭ, “O “i͡udoboi͡azni” Andrei͡a Belogo,” Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie 28 (1997), 100 – 125; Omry Ronen, “‘Èto’” in his Shram. Vtorai͡a kniga iz goroda Ann (Sankt-Peterburg: zhurnal “Zvezda,” 2007), 63 – 73, and “Poedinki” in his Chuzheli͡ubie. Tret’i͡a kniga iz goroda Ann (Sankt-Peterburg: zhurnal “Zvezda,” 2010), 199 – 215; and Mikhail Zolotonosov, “Master i Margarita” kak putevoditel’ po subkul’ture russkogo antisemitizma (SRA) (S.-Peterburg: INAPRESS, 1995).

The following words of a contemporary reviewer of Petersburg aptly characterize this frame of mind: “<…> through the frail texture of the visible reality and of the normal daily consciousness a different reality shows <…> in which dark roots of history come to light, and there in that different reality Semitic features come through <…> which in morbid delirium, in hallucination are taking shape <…> of the fatal signs of death” (L.S. Vygodskiĭ, “Literaturnye zametki (‘Peterburg’, roman Adrei͡a Belogo. 1916 g.),” Novyĭ put’, December 11, 47 (1916), st. 31 – 32). The same foundations of history “show through” in Florenskiĭ’s preface to the rampantly anti-Semitic collection of articles Izrail’ v proshlom, nastoi͡ashchem i budushchem [Israel in the past, present and future]: “There is hardly anybody who does not see that the Jewish question is the world question, and, moreover, is the central question of world history. It is in this knot that countless and tangled threads of history come together” (See “Predislovie,” in Izrail’ v proshlom, nastoi͡ashchem i budushchem (Sergiev Posad: Izd. “Religiozno-filosofskoĭ Biblioteki,” 1915), 5. The preface is anonymous. On the authorship of Florenskiĭ_, see Michael Hagemeister, “Pavel Florenskij und der Ritualmordvorwurf,” in Michael Hagemeister and Torsten Metelka, eds., Appendix 2. Materialien zu Pavel Florenskij (Berlin u. Zepernick: Kontext, 2001), 69.

Although most of what follows is devoted to Moscow mathematicians, I never lose sight of Belyĭ. Bugaev was a formative influence both on the Moscow Mathematical Society, and on Belyĭ himself (a prototype for Ableukhov the younger of the novel). Therefore, the parallels between the ideological views of Bugaev’s circle and those reflected in Belyĭ’s work, most importantly in Petersburg, are illuminating. Moreover, since one of the key motifs of the novel is the parallel between Ableukhov the elder and Ableukhov the younger, my comparison of the ideology of Bugaev’s circle with Belyĭ’s views, should be relevant to the thematics of the novel.
The character of the “little senator” of Petersburg being a tour de force in many respects (including the amazing wealth of topical and historical allusions it contains), it also provides a convenient framework for a discussion of Bugaev’s circle. My research on Moscow mathematicians prompted by the novel led to a fuller appreciation of Apollon Ableukhov’s remarkably comprehensive character, his name itself being a complex topical allusion. Hence the relevant constituents of the senator’s name and surname shall be scrutinized in further parts of this study.

Apollon, it should be noted, is an accepted first name among the Russian nobility, and three well-known nineteenth century poets bear it (in the descending order of merit: Apollon Grigor’ev, Apollon Maĭkov, and Apollon Korinfskiĭ). It is, however, quite rare among Russian statesmen and high officials. The two who come to mind are privy councilor Apollon Davydovich Lokhvitskiĭ, the Yeniseĭ governor in the 1880s, and Apollon Konstantinovich Krivoshein, the last minister of transportation under Alexander III, eventually accused of graft and forced into retirement.

Since Petersburg is relatively little known outside Russia, one should add that it is undoubtedly one of the greatest novels of the past century. Thus, even its smallest detail is entitled to close attention. The attempt to reconstruct a school of thought, using a literary motif not only as a point of departure, but as a constant frame of reference, is in this case not disproportionate. The more so for the geometrical passion of Ableukhov the elder is a valuable pointer to an ideology that perfectly illustrates the abuse of mathematics as described by the first historian of the discipline, Jean-Étienne Montucla (1725 – 1799) in terms applicable to our subject: “Les Pythagoriciens en montrerent autrefois l’exemple <…>; mais il est des modernes qui ont tellement enchéri sur ces visions creuses, qu’il n’est aucun Pythagorien qui ne leur eut cédé le pas <…>.”

One may invoke the authority of Vladimir Nabokov, who included Petersburg in his list of the greatest literary masterpieces of the last century, after Joyce’s Ulysses and Kafka’s Metamorphosis (closing the list and placed immediately after Petersburg finds itself “the first half of Proust’s fairy tale In Search of Lost Time”). See Vladimir Nabokov, Strong Opinions (New York: Vintage International-Vintage Books – A division of Random House, Inc., 1990), 57; cf. Robert A. Maguire and John E. Malmstad, “Translators’ Introduction,” in Bely’s Petersburg, VIII.

Montucla, Histoire des mathématiques, T. 1 (Paris: Ch. Ant. Jombert, 1758), 37 (h).

The intricate symbols of Petersburg offer a synthesis of mathematics as a “state science” as conceived by the Moscow “school,” and of racial mysticism as a key to understanding all social phenomena. To adequately interpret Petersburg, one has to trace its symbols back to their ideological components, including those related to the thought of the Moscow “school.” Conversely, the novel may serve as a key to the nebulous political fantasies of the Moscow mathematicians.