In his "Reminiscences of Dostoevsky" (1885),
S. D. Yanovski* compares the author of Crime and Punishment
and other "psychological" novels to Western psychiatrists Charcot,
Siegmund Freud (whom Yanovski mentions by the first name spelling
it Сигмунт**) and Carl Westphal:
Любимый им предмет изучения был душа человека.
Стань он сразу на эту дорогу, он дал бы психиатрии такое движение, перед которым
благоговели бы все Шарко, Сигмунты и Вестфали.
"His favorite field of study was human soul. If he
had chosen this subject from the very beginning, he would have given to
psychiatry the impulse toward which all these Charcots, Sigmunds and
Westphals would have had a reverential attitude" (I apologize for a habitually
poor translation).
Now, if we ignore that Westphalian
ham and add to the names Шарко (Charcot) and Сигмунт (Sigmund) some квас
(kvas, Russian non-alcoholic drink***), we'll have the
following anagram:
ШАРКО + СИГМУНТ + КВАС = ШАР + СИГ + КНУТ +
МОСКВА (шар means "globe"; сиг, "white fish"; кнут, "whip"; Москва, Moscow,
Dostoevski's home city)
*Dostoevski's friend and physician. Dr
Yanovski (1815-92) spent the last twenty years of his life in
Switzerland
**the usual spelling is Зигмунд
***cf. квасной
патриотизм, jingoism. Dostoevski was квасной патриот
To Stan Kelly-Bootle: I'm sorry, if I hurt you in
my previous post. I mistook your kind suggestion as to how better
translate the Latin epitaph for the criticism of my theory.
Alexey Sklyarenko