Corrections to Russian Thinkers

The second edition of Russian Thinkers (2008) incorporates corrections to the first edition (1978) that are far too numerous to list here.

List 1 below shows changes marked by Berlin on offprints of two of the original articles: see introductory note to that list. List 2 shows corrections to the second edition (made in subsequent impressions, except for those in this colour, which will be made in future reprints). List 3 draws attention to the main changes between editions, but there were numerous other substantial if small improvements.

Translations should be made from the latest impression of the second edition, and should include the corrections in lists 1 and 2.

1. Changes made by Berlin but discovered only after the publication of the second edition

The changes below, written by Berlin on offprints of ‘Russia and 1848’ and ‘Herzen and Bakunin on Individual Liberty’, came to light too late to be included in the second edition. Penguin’s reprints policy prevents them from implementing revisions on this scale except in new editions.

Page Line For Read
1 7–11 the loose […] Empire. the occasional repression of young men accused of subversive talk – like that for which Herzen and his fellow students were punished – even the sporadic minor peasant disorders of which there was some increase in the early 1840s in remote provincial districts, did not seriously disturb even the surface of Russian life; in 1848 itself the peace of the vast and still expanding Empire seemed unbroken.
9 up the republic the cause of the republic
2 14 up all all,
7 up far more rather
3 up gathered originally gathered
3 7 no no self-conscious
12 up  with at an
7 up liberal liberal-democratic
5 10–13 the journalist […] social the fronde, such as it was, itself sprang from the ranks of the landed gentry; those who did not – the journalists Polevoy and Botkin (the highly articulate tea-merchant, the friend of Belinsky and Turgenev), and later Kraevsky and Katkov, and indeed Belinsky himself – were notable exceptions. Social
19–21 or else […] religion, in others to a tendency to seek comfort in apathetic resignation, or in spiritual quietism, religious or secular,
15 up did become eventually became
13 up ‘confession’ recantation
6 10 the West Western science
12–13 ideal: than for example, the imaginary ideals: than, for instance, their spokesman
17 up kind of [delete]
13 up fact fact about the aftermath of 1848
12–11 up progressives, and progressives;
11 up grew tended to grow
10 up often merely
It Its best-known publicists, the leaders of the extreme left wing of what was becoming known as the intelligentsia,
4 up this this positive attitude
7 8 in some cases often
13 quarrel chasm in the 1860s
14 Bell) Bell) in London
14–15 in the 1860s grew bitter was not bridgeable
18 gulf distance
17 up wider greater
15 up and like the right and, like the right,
13 up remedies, compounded remedies compounded
11 up at last [delete]
10 up had [delete]
9–8 up the revolutionary intelligentsia was it was received by an intelligentsia
3 up compromise compromise with the establishment
8 3 it was an army ready to march was an army morally ready, even if it was not materially equipped, to march
11 up articles essays
8 up but containing, containing, however,
7 up concealed allusions concealed, ‘Aesopian’, allusions
2 up which but above all of ideas which
9 12–11 up masters. But the Minister masters; and in this sense pioneered a practice with which we are all too familiar today. But the times were nevertheless different from our own: the Minister
9 up who a man who
5 up exceptionally [delete]
11 5 believe it believe it and no solid evidence for it has been found
6 accurately enough [delete]
7 told told the writer
13–14 But Polish […] at every [delete three commas]
16 Paskevich the Viceroy Paskevich
17 suspected smelled
12 up altogether too very
7 up this spreading of the the spreading of this
12 9 this it
12–13 Hungary; Hungary.
15 Prussia; the Prussia. The
18–19 powers were fascist and other totalitarian powers were and are
15 up innumerable a vast army of
13 4–5 bureaucrats who did their best to put difficulties or timid bureaucrats who did their best to put obstacles
7 his unfortunate the attack on liberalism in his
17 handled treated
18–17 up issued from Bulgarin and flowed from Bulgarin with some help from
14 up dangerous dangerously
3–4 up scarcely to be found not often to be found even
14 1 Herzen Herzen, Annenkov
4 his [delete]
note 1, 1 still to be found in the latest to be found in
note 1, 3 later said was later reported as saying
[add at end of note 1:] He was, of course, systematically denounced, with Nekrasov, Nikitenko and other members of the literary group round the Contemporary as a source of ‘communist’ ideas, although he was not accused of deliberate communist propaganda. Suitable extracts from dangerous thought of this type were brought to the attention of ministers and the Emperor himself.
15 note 1, 1 is – that is
note 1, 1–2 popular pun in St Petersburg. characteristic St Petersburg pun.
16 4 Teleskop Telescope
18–19 personalities […] salon. personalities on his weekly jour fixe.
8 up purity candour
17 8 meanness, meanness (‘bassesse gratuite’),
6 up Korf Modest Korf
last three volumes of the
[add at end of note 2:] At the same time he amused himself by composing a manifesto to the Russian people after it had risen in revolution. The draft was discovered in his writing table after his death.
18 6 the story there is a story – not authenticated –
8–9 devil, is unsupported by evidence devil
20 neo-medievalist nostalgia nostalgic neo-medievalist ideals
last him as him (at least in part) as
19 4 up had to have
20 3 into exile to Siberia
6 reactionary supporter of Church and throne
21 10 ideas ideas (which had, indeed, begun before the revolution: his letters from Paris in 1847 make this plain)
12 in still in
16 firmly [delete]
18 a good many some
8 up from the from the moderates, the irresolute and the
22 5 recognised notorious
11–13 Turgenev […] Sketches. [move to precede ‘But’ in line 16]
16 The Village, and in Anton Goremyka, published in 1847. The Village (1846) and in Anton Goremyka (1847).
8 up merely only
last Dostoevsky and Dostoevsky or
23 4 all too almost too
8 so [delete]
10 from from their disenchantment with the West, and from
12 wholly [delete]
14 sentimental gradualism and
4 up [insert paragraph break after ‘resources.’]
2 up of of much of
last Russia. Russia. This central factor must be taken into account in explaining why the Russian revolution of 1905 led to consequences very profoundly different from those which followed its Western prototypes in the annus mirabilis 1848.
94 8 journalist, journalist and agitator of unique powers,
17 up tradition heroic memory and tradition
10 up precise wholly
7 up original fruitful
6 up the first (delete)
last unique significant
95 9 liberalism radicalism
last stupidity stupidity, crime
96 6 romanticism irrationalism
7–8 and […] movement, [delete]
8 This This was, in its turn, succeeded by Hegelian quasi-rationalism. This
9 retained restored
17 molecules uniform molecules
18 terms quantitative terms – for example, in terms
19 up laws qualitative laws
7 up was rational; human itself was rational: reason in action, the self-realisation of the Spirit. Human
97 3 madness abandonment of reason – mental derangement
116 note 2, line 4 comparison contrast
129 6 up Bear’ – die grosse Lise1 – Bear’, from die grosse Lise,1

2. Corrections (to be) made to the second edition

These corrections have been made in later impressions of the second edition, except for those in this colour, which should be included in translations, in addition to those in list 1.

Page Line For Read
i 13 4th ed. 1978 5th ed. 2013
iv 28 The Isaiah The Trustees of the Isaiah
13 Concepts The Age of Enlightenment (1956; 2nd ed. 2017), Concepts
    1978 1978; 2nd ed. 2013
  14 1979 1979; 2nd ed. 2013
    2nd 3rd
  15 1998 2014
    1990 1990; 2nd ed. 2013
  16  (1997 , an anthology drawn from previous volumes (1998; 2nd ed. 2013
  17 1999 1999; 2nd ed. 2013
    2000 2000; 2nd ed. 2013
  18 2000 2000; 2nd ed. 2013
  19 2002 2002; 2nd ed. 2014
  20 2006 2006; 2nd ed. 2014
  9–8 up (co-)edited […] above. also edited or co-edited many other books by Berlin, including all those listed above, and a four-volume edition of his letters (2004–15). He is co-editor of The One and the Many: Reading Isaiah Berlin (2007), editor of The Book of Isaiah: Personal Impressions of Isaiah Berlin (2009), and author of In Search of Isaiah Berlin: A Literary Adventure (2018).
  6 up where he is […] 2013. and one of Isaiah Berlin’s Literary Trustees.
  3–1 up Oxford [...] College. Oxford. She is a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge University, where she was most recently Reader in Intellectual History and Russian Culture.
ii 1 Bakumin Bakunin
3 and Views , Views
4 (1999). (1999) and The Discovery of Chance: The Life and Thought of Alexander Herzen (2016).
after 4 [add new paragraph:] JASON FERRELL is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University. His research interests include value pluralism, German romanticism and nineteenth-century Russian literature. He has also taught an online course on Isaiah Berlin, and has published on Berlin’s ideas.
2 up [insert below:] https://isaiah-berlin.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/
4 18 makes make
9 9 up Orthodoxy, autocracy autocracy, Orthodoxy
48 8 Fili Letashevka
93 15 war – like a real Cossack – auf war like a real Cossack, auf
103 12 death. death!
105 3 earth. earth?`
107 16 life is itself life is life itself
218 6 up true solutions a true solution
279 17 He had married and settled down, He married in 1862 and settled down;
299 6 Tartar Tatar
9 talent talent.
12 [… […]. [
13 dark the darkness of
14 life […] life.
307 note 4 7 8
323 note 3, 1 the fathers fathers
335 7 1876 1877
347 note 1, last 1981– 1981–2015
378 Stankevich, 6–7 Herzen […] (qq.v.) Herzen (q.v.), Granovsky, Bakunin (q.v.) and Katkov
382 s.v. Zasulich, 6–5 up two journals, Iskra (the Spark) and Zarya (Dawn), wrote articles, the radical newspaper Iskra (the Spark), as well as the journal Zarya (Dawn); wrote articles;
394 s.v. Bakunin antipathy to Germans, 233 antipathy to Germans, 126, 233 [and move up to precede ‘condemns central authority’]
398 s.v. Germany Bakunin condemns for servility, 126 Bakunin’s antipathy to, 126, 233
400 col. 1, 4 up 107 107, 224

3. Main changes in the second edition

Item / page reference in second edition Change
All footnotes and quotations Checked and often substantially revised; notes added where missing (examples below are not exhaustive)
Editorial preface Completely rewritten
Note on the cover photograph New
Abbreviations and conventions New
Introduction Revised; footnotes added
3 note 1 Source added and details corrected
17 note 2 Quotation corrected; note added
‘The Hedgehog and the Fox’ Text from PSM used, with mostly minor revisions (this text, among other changes, adds translations of French quotations)
110 note 1 Quotation corrected; note added
‘A Remarkable Decade’ Footnotes added and quotations corrected
193 Quotation beginning ‘I am tormented […]’ reordered
197–8 Paragraph bridging these pages brought into line with version on p. 299
‘Russian Populism’ Footnotes added and quotations corrected
260 note 2 Statistics corrected
‘Tolstoy and Enlightenment’ Footnotes added and quotations corrected
299 Epigraph brought into line with version on pp. 197–8
318 note 2 Major changes to text and note
323 note 1 Repeated quotation (see p. 348) removed at end of passage
324–8 Illustrations added
337 note 1 Correct novel substituted
Glossary of names New
Index Completely revised

Last updated 7 May 2023