D.V. Averkiev and P.I. Tchaikovsky, or ant trails

The article employs approaches typical for cultural microhistory to investigate the convergence of cultural phenomena at the boundaries of artistic and scientific disciplines, literature, music and book publishing. The work of Dmitry Vasilyevich Averkiev (1836-1905), writer, playwright, critic and translator, is examined as popularization, having introduced the Russian audience to significant and valuable achievements of European literature and science. Thanks to Averkiev the Russian reader was first acquainted with “Conversations with Goethe”, which attracted the attention of N.S. Leskov, A.P. Chekhov, V.V. Rozanov, D.S. Merezhkovsky, P.A. Florensky. He also had access to works by F. Cooper, P. Merimee, H. de Balzac, L. Sterne, A.F. Prevost, as well as scientific works on physics, chemistry, physiology and entomology in a clear, simple and accessible Russian translation. Averkiev’s recipients were not only well-educated, scientifically competent people, but also a wide range of ordinary readers served by A.S. Suvorin’s publishing empire “Novoye vremya”. An example of the response elicited by Averkiev’s translation in the receiving culture can be found in P.I. Tchaikovsky’s marginalia in J. Lubbock’s book ‘Ants, bees and wasps” (1884). Tchaikovsky was familiar with Averkiev’s works and asked him to write a libretto for a would-be opera about Vanka the Steward. In this case Tchaikovsky was excited about observations of ants, especially the part regarding their resemblance to humans.