In Batyushkov's prose piece Vecher u Kantemira
("An Evening at Kantemir's," 1816), the poet Antiokh Kantemir* mentions, as
he speaks to abbot V. and Montesquieu, archimandrite
Krolik (d. 1732): Ученый Феофан, архимандрит
Кролик** (оба достойные пастыря), Никита
Трубецкий и другие вельможи одобрили мои слабые опыты, мое
перо неискусное, но смелое, чистосердечное.
Antiokh + errata + Kent = Antiterra +
Okhtenka
Antiokh = Tikhon (Khotin, khiton) +
a
Krolik = Orlik + k = Kliko + r
Okhtenka - Okhta
girl, a milkmaid mentioned in Canto One of "Eugene
Onegin"
Tikhon - male given name; in
Ilf & Petrov's "The 12 Chairs" dvornik (caretaker)
Tikhon suggests that "for some a mare'd be a bride;" one is also
reminded of Tikhon Zadonsky, a Russian priest and religious writer who lived in
the 18th century, and Sholokhov's novel Tikhiy Don ("And Quiet Flows
the Don") with its "Cossacks of cardboard on their cardboard rocking-horses;" in
Ertel's novel Gardeniny ("The Gardenins") Krolik is the name of a
thoroughbred stallion; Ada's Baron d'Onsky (nicknamed Skonky; anagram
of Skonky, konsky means "of a horse") seems to be a horse,
too
Khotin - a city in W Ukrain, near
the Rumanien border; Lomonosov's The Khotin Ode is believed to be the
first Russian poem written in iambic tetrameter
khiton - tunic
Orlik - Filipp Orlik,
general'nyi pisar' (head of foreign office) in Masepa's Ukrain, a
character in Pushkin's Poltava
Kliko - Veuve Clicquot, the famous
champagne mentioned in "Eugene Onegin"
*The youngest son of the Moldavian gospodar'
(ruler), descendant of Byzanthine Emperors and, probably, Tamerlane
(temir in Kantemir is corrupted timur, "iron" in
Tatar; cf. "Timur and Nabok" mentioned in Ada:
1.39), Kantemir was a Russian ambassador in Paris. As a poet, Kantemir
is remembered for his Satiry ("The Satires") written in syllabic verse
(without meter). In Batyshkov's piece he also mentions his translation
of Fontenelle's "Miry" (Entretiens sur la pluralite
des mondes).
**Феофил Кролик (ум. 1732), архимандрит Новоспасского и Чудова
монастырей, сподвижник Феофана Прокоповича. Много переводил с немецкого, в
частности исторические лексиконы и протестантский катехизис. Вместе с Феофаном
написал стихи в похвалу I сатире Кантемира, который поместил их в вводной части
своего сборника. Латинский текст стихов и их стихотворный русский перевод
помещены в 1-м издании сатир Кантемира (1762): Язвлю тебя — молчи, ведь я не
именую. / Кричишь — не я, да ты являешь совесть
злую...
Alexey Sklyarenko (who apologizes for bits of untranslated
text)