Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/14

x before the fall of tsarism. On two or three occasions, in addition to this general reminder, we have deemed it advisable to introduce a special reminder into the text. In view of the date when the work was compiled, we have followed Masaryk throughout in speaking of "St. Petersburg" instead of using the now accepted name of "Petrograd." In certain respects, as far as philosophical discussions are concerned, the author breaks new ground, and it has therefore been difficult at times to render his meaning into intelligible English. There are difficulties even in the German original, and on one occasion, when Masaryk coins the term "solomnism," he writes in a parenthesis "I really must ask pardon of the philologists!" For the use of this and many similar barbarous terms, such as historism, historicism, and the like, the translators, for their part, must claim the reader's indulgence.

Cordial acknowledgments are due to R. W. Seton-Watson, R. A. Leeper, and L. C. Wharton, who have rendered help of inestimable value in the elucidation of various difficult points.

A final word is requisite concerning personal names, the names of places, and the thorny problem of transliteration. Following the usual convention, the names of royalties have been anglicised. As regards the Russians this has not been applied to the grand princes, but only to the tsars and their successors. This is why we speak of "Ivan Kalita" and of "Ivan III," whereas the ruler who is most frequently spoken of in England as "lvan the Terrible" is termed "John IV," just as "Petr Velikii" becomes "Peter the Great," or in most cases simply "Peter."

With regard to personal names in general, we have not followed the author strictly, but, acting on the advice of L. C. Wharton of the British Museum Library staff, have adopted, with a few trifling modifications, the Bohemian transliteration as used in the Slavonic library at King's College, London. It is possible that this system will be adopted some day in the British Museum Library catalogue, but for the present in that catalogue a more complicated system is used, whose chief merit is that it provides uninstructed English readers with more obvious clues to Russian pronunciation. In the subjoined table, the Russian alphabet is given in the first column, the British Museum transliteration in the second, and the Slavonic library transliteration (the one we have adopted) in the third: