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CRITICAL POLITICAL THEORY AND RADICAL PRACTICE

THE RUSSIAN
REVOLUTION
AS IDEAL AND
PRACTICE
Failures, Legacies, and
the Future of Revolution

Edited by
Thomas Telios, Dieter Thomä, and Ulrich Schmid
Critical Political Theory and Radical Practice

Series Editor
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Department of Political Science
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ, USA
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 Thomas Telios · Dieter Thomä ·
Ulrich Schmid
Editors

The Russian
Revolution as Ideal
and Practice
Failures, Legacies, and the Future of Revolution
Editors
Thomas Telios Dieter Thomä
University of St. Gallen University of St. Gallen
St. Gallen, Switzerland St. Gallen, Switzerland

Ulrich Schmid
University of St. Gallen
St. Gallen, Switzerland

Critical Political Theory and Radical Practice

ISBN 978-3-030-14236-0 ISBN 978-3-030-14237-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14237-7

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 Contents

1 Preface 1
Thomas Telios, Dieter Thomä and Ulrich Schmid

Part I Reconsidering the Russian Revolution

2 Beyond the Horizon: The Russian Revolution Seen

from Afar 21
Karl Schlögel

3 Reenacting Revolution? Theater and Politics

of Repetition 35
Sylvia Sasse

4 Revolution in Sexual Ethics: Communism

and the “Sex Problem” 51
Enikő Darabos

5 Revolution and Salvation 67

Christian Schmidt

v
vi    Contents

6 Law, Absolute Will, and the “Withering of the State”:

Sovereignty at the Limits of Lenin’s “Dictatorship
of the Proletariat” 83
Naveen Kanalu

7 What Is Life Like After Revolution? Administration,

Habit, and Democracy in Lenin’s “The State and
Revolution”—and Beyond 101
Dieter Thomä

Part II Retelling the Russian Revolution

8 German and Jewish Conspiracies: The October

Revolution from the Perspective of the Italian Fascists
and the German National Socialists 129
Ulrich Schmid

9 A Narrative Theory for the October Revolution

(From Maugham to Benjamin and Back) 143
Tatjana Jukić

10 October and the Prospects for Revolution: The Views

of Arendt, Adorno, and Marcuse 165
Marie-Josée Lavallée

11 Memory Politics and the “Politics of Memory” 191

Tora Lane

12 Into Historical Limbo: The Legacy of the October

Revolution in Russia 207
Stephan Rindlisbacher

Part III Reenabling Revolution

13 The Concepts of Revolution 227

Geoffroy de Lagasnerie
 Contents    vii

14 The Possibility of the Revolution 243

Christoph Menke

15 Time Intensification in Revolutionary Dynamics 261

Donatella della Porta

16 Postscript: Communist Subjectivity and the Politics

of Collectiversalism 283
Thomas Telios
 Notes on Contributors

Enikő Darabos is Lecturer in Hungarian literature and literary the-

ory at the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE, Hungary). She completed
her Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Szeged in Literary Studies
with an emphasis on critical and psychoanalytical theories. Her research
interests include contemporary Hungarian literature, critical theories,
gender studies and theories of the body. Being supported by the János
Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences,
she is currently working on the topic of corporeality in the narratives of
Péter Nádas. Recent publications: Body Metaphors in the Contemporary
Hungarian Literature (2017).
Geoffroy de Lagasnerie is Professor of Philosophy and Sociology at the
École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Paris-Cergy and the author of The
Art of Revolt. Snowden, Assange, Manning (Stanford, 2017) and Judge
and Punish. The Penal State on Trial (Stanford 2018). He is the co-au-
thor, with the writer Edouard Loui, of “Manifesto for an Intellectual
and Political Counteroffensive”, published in English by the Los Angeles
Review of Books.
Donatella della Porta is Professor of Political Science, Dean of the
Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale
Superiore in Florence, where she also leads the Center on Social
Movement Studies (Cosmos). Among the main topics of her research:
social movements, political violence, terrorism, corruption, the police
and protest policing. Recipient of prestigious awards and Honorary

ix
x    Notes on Contributors

Doctor of a series of universities, she is the author or editor of 90

books, 135 journal articles and 135 contributions in edited volumes.
Recent publications: Legacies and Memories in Movements (Oxford
University Press, 2018); Sessantotto. Passato e presente dell’anno ribelle
(Fertrinelli, 2018); Contentious moves (Palgrave 2017), Global Diffusion
of Protest (Amsterdam University Press, 2017), Late Neoliberalism and
its Discontents (Palgrave, 2017); Movement Parties in Times of Austerity
(Polity 2017), Where did the Revolution go? (Cambridge University Press,
2016); Social Movements in Times of Austerity (Polity 2015), etc.
Tatjana Jukić is Professor and Chair of English Literature in the
Department of English at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences,
University of Zagreb. She also teaches in the doctoral programs of
Comparative Literature and of Croatian Language and Literature. In
addition to two books—Revolution and Melancholia. Limits of Literary
Memory (2011), and Liking, Dislike, Supervision. Literature and the
Visual in Victorian Britain (2002)—she has published articles on nine-
teenth- and twentieth-century literature, psychoanalysis, film and phi-
losophy. Jukić is currently completing a book provisionally titled The
Invention of Masochism.
Naveen Kanalu is Doctoral Candidate in History at the University of
California, Los Angeles. His research pertains to the legal and politi-
cal culture of the Mughal Empire in the second half of the seventeenth
century. Ancien élève of Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, he was
Attaché temporaire d’enseignement et de recherche at the Université
de Strasbourg. Last publications: “Darstellung matérialiste: le cinéma en
tant que perception non-intentionnelle du réel chez Walter Benjamin”
in Marc Berdet and Thomas Ebke, eds., Matérialisme anthropologique
et matérialisme de la rencontre (Berlin 2014), “Krishna Bharadwaj’s
‘Return to Classical Theory’: An Attempt towards an Archaeological
Reconstruction” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought
(2015).
Tora Lane is Lecturer in Aesthetics and Research leader at CBEES,
Södertörn University. She has a Ph.D. in Russian Literature and special-
izes in aesthetic issues of Russian Modernism and Soviet Literature. She
has published several articles on the poetry of Tsvetaeva, the prose of
Andrei Platonov. Last publications: Rendering the Sublime. A Reading of
the Fairy Tale Poem The Swain by Marina Cvetaeva (2009) (dissertation),
 Notes on Contributors    xi

Dis-orientations. Philosophy, Literature and the Lost Grounds of Modernity

(eds. with Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback, RLI 2014), Andrey Platonov:
The Forgotten Dream of the Revolution (Lexington Books, 2018).
Marie-Josée Lavallée specializes in the history of political thought and
political ideas from the nineteenth century to today. She teaches con-
temporary history at the Department of History of the Université de
Montréal, Québec, Canada. Her current research focuses on German
Émigrés thinkers from the 1920s to the 1970s, including those of the
first generation of the Frankfurt School. Last publications: Last publi-
cations: Lire Platon avec Hannah Arendt: politique, totalitarisme, pensée
(Montréal, Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2017), “Le miracle de la
polis athénienne démocratique chez Hannah Arendt et Eric Voegelin”,
in: Reflets modernes de la démocratie athénienne, edited by J.-M.
Narbonne, and J. Boulad-Ayoub, (Québec, 2017).
Christoph Menke is Professor of Practical Philosophy (with a special focus
on legal philosophy and political philosophy) at the Goethe-University,
Frankfurt/M., Germany. He has taught in Konstanz (1988–1991),
Berlin (1991–1997), at the New School for Social Research in New York
(1997–1999) and Potsdam (1999–2009). He has held fellowships at the
Free University, Berlin, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in
Mexico City, the Columbia University and the Max Weber-Kolleg, Erfurt.
His philosophy focuses on topics of political and legal philosophy, theo-
ries of subjectivity, ethics and aesthetics. Book publications in English: The
Sovereignty of Art. Aesthetic Negativity after Adorno and Derrida, MIT
Press 1998; Reflections of Equality, Stanford UP 2006; Tragic Play. Tragedy.
Irony and Theater from Sophocles to Beckett, Columbia UP 2009; Force. A
Fundamental Concept of Aesthetic Anthropology, Fordham UP 2012; Law
and Violence. Christoph Menke in Dialogue, Manchester UP 2018.
Stephan Rindlisbacher has acquired a mobility grant from the Swiss
National Science Foundation and is currently working at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to this, he worked as teaching assistant at
the Historical Department of the University of Bern. He wrote his Ph.D.
on the pre-revolutionary Russian radical movement, focusing on the
biographies of two women: Vera Zasulich and Vera Figner. He studied
modern history, Slavic as well as Islamic studies. He was educated across
the European continent at the Universities of Bern, Zagreb and the State
University of St. Petersburg.
xii    Notes on Contributors

Sylvia Sasse is Professor for Slavic Literature Studies at the University of

Zurich, co-founder of the ZKK (Center for Arts and Cultural Theories)
and co-publisher of “Geschichte der Gegenwart”. She is the project
leader of the ERC-Project “Performance Art in Eastern Europe 1950–
1990. History and Theory” (performanceart.info) and is working on a
monograph on “Subversive Affirmation. Critique of Critique revisited”.
Recently she published together with Inke Arns and Igor Chubarov the
book “Nikolai Evreinov & others, The Storming of the Winter Palace,
Zurich:diaphanes 2017 and curated the exhibition “The Storming of the
Winter Palace: Forensics of an Image” in Dortmund, Zurich, and Łodz.
Karl Schlögel is Professor Emeritus, Historian and Writer and held the
Chair of Eastern European History at the European University Viadrina,
Frankfurt/Oder. Currently he is visiting scholar at the Getty Research
Centre, Los Angeles (2018/2019) where he is working on a biogra-
phy of the Volga river. His research topics include Russian and Soviet
modernity, urban history in East Central Europe, Russian diaspora and
history of forced migration in Eastern Europe, and the theoretical ques-
tions of historiography (the spatial dimension of history, narratives of
simultaneity). His books include: Petersburg 1909–1921. Laboratorium
der Moderne (1998/2003), To Read Time in Space (2006), Moscow 1937
(2012), Das sowjetische Jahrhundert. Archäologie einer untergegangenen
Welt (2017, English edition forthcoming), Das russische Berlin (new
enlarged edition forthcoming in 2019).
Ulrich Schmid is Professor of Russian Studies at the University of St.
Gallen. His research interests include nationalism, popular culture and
the media in Eastern Europe. He studied German and Slavic literature
at the Universities of Zürich, Heidelberg, and Leningrad. He held aca-
demic positions in Basel, Bern, Bochum and was visiting researcher
in Harvard and in Oslo. Publications: De profundis. The Failure of the
Russian Revolution (2017), Technologies of the Soul. The Production of
Truth in Contemporary Russian Culture (2015), Sword, Eagle and Cross.
The Aesthetics of the Nationalist Discourse in Interwar Poland (2013),
Tolstoi as a Theological Thinker and a Critic of the Church (2013, with
Martin George, Jens Herlth, Christian Münch), Lev Tolstoi (2010) etc.
Christian Schmidt is Privatdozent in philosophy at Leipzig University
and member of the Saxonian Academy of Sciences and Humanities
in Leipzig (Young Forum). He led a research group at the Saxonian
 Notes on Contributors    xiii

Academy from 2006 to 2008 and was Dilthey-Fellow of the Volkswagen

Foundation from 2009 to 2015. He was habilitated in philosophy at
Leipzig University in 2016 with a thesis on “Problems of Autonomy.” In
the academic years 2015/16 and 2016/17 he replaced chairs for Social
and Practical Philosophy in Frankfurt and Leipzig. His most recent book
is a German introduction to Karl Marx (Junius 2018).
Thomas Telios is Lecturer of Philosophy at the University of St.
Gallen, Switzerland. His research interests encompass a wide range
of topics in social and political philosophy (theories of subjectivity,
theories of individual and collective agency, Queer-Marxism, theo-
ries of community, the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, New
Materialisms, Critical Theory of Law etc.). His monography on the col-
lective agency of the decentred subjectivity is to appear shortly as Das
Subjekt als Gemeinwesen. Zur sozial-ontologischen Konstitution kollekti-
ver Handlungsfähigkeit (2018). Recent publications: “Putting Oneself
Out There. The “Selfie” and the Alter-Rithmic Transformations of
Subjectivity” (with Jörg Metelmann - 2018), “Kollektivitäten im
Zwiestreit: Verheißungen, Ambivalenzen und Fallstricke” (co-edited -
2018), “Collectivity as Critical Model: Pace Adorno?“, in: Zeitschrift für
Kultur- und Kollektivwissenschaft, Vol. 4, Nr. 1/2018.
Dieter Thomä is Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Gallen,
Switzerland. His research interests are in social and political philosophy,
ethics, aesthetics, and phenomenology. He has held fellowships at the Getty
Research Institute in Los Angeles (2002–2003), the Wissenschaftskolleg
zu Berlin (2009–2010) and the Institute for Advanced Study in
Princeton (2018–2019). He was a visiting professor at the University of
California at Davis and at Brown University, Providence. Recent publica-
tions: Troublemakers: A Philosophy of Puer Robustus (Polity Press 2019),
Transparency, Society and Subjectivity: Critical Perspectives (co-editor with
Emmanuel Alloa, Palgrave Macmillan 2018).
 List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 The famous photo of the storming, presumably in original

form. The directors’ command tower and the spectators
on the right can still be seen. But even this photo is not
of the storming itself, but rather—given the time of
day—of a rehearsal (Original from the book Geist und
Gesicht des Bolschewismus [1926] by the American
sociologist René Fülöp-Miller [1891–1963].
René Fülöp-Miller, Geist und Gesicht des Bolschewismus,
Zurich, Leipzig, Vienna, 1926, table 121) 45
Fig. 3.2 The retouched image (Original from State Central
Museum of Contemporary History of Russia, where
it is archived as “a photograph of the storming
of the Winter Palace on October 25, 1917.” State Central
Museum of Contemporary History of Russia, 36864/20) 46
Fig. 12.1 The commemoration of the 1941 Parade on November 7,
2016 on Red Square (photograph has been taken by
the author of this article) 212
Fig. 12.2 The commemoration ceremony of the Communist Party
of the Russian Federation on November 7, 2016
on Theatre Square (photograph has been taken by
the author of this article) 213

xv
 CHAPTER 1

Preface

Thomas Telios, Dieter Thomä and Ulrich Schmid

It was the Russian artist and writer Julia Kissina who—during a public
discussion that took place at the Literaturhaus in Zurich in October
2017—expressed what would become the Leitmotif of this volume.
When asked to give an account of why the Russian Revolution keeps
inspiring her nowadays, she gave the following instinctive and unabashed
utterance: “Because we are all children of the French and the Russian
Revolution. Everything that we now have in our culture, the way we
behave, the way our societies function, the values that we all share,
are the products of both the French and the Russian Revolution, the
products of this last successful revolution that the Russian Revolution
was.” Officially, the revolutionary events that took place in Russia were

T. Telios (*) · D. Thomä

University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland
e-mail: thomas.telios@unisg.ch
D. Thomä
e-mail: dieter.thomae@unisg.ch
U. Schmid
University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland
e-mail: ulrich.schmid@unisg.ch

© The Author(s) 2020 1

T. Telios et al. (eds.), The Russian Revolution as Ideal
and Practice, Critical Political Theory and Radical Practice,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14237-7_1
2 T. TELIOS ET AL.

declared accomplished after the mythologized storming of the Winter

Palace at 2.10 a.m. on Thursday, October 25, 1917, as the mantle clock
in the Hermitage’s “White Dining Room” indicates to this day. Yet, due
to the global changes these events set in motion, the Russian Revolution
continues to loom large in intellectual debates one hundred years later.
This book is about this dialectic: the dialectic that unfolds necessarily
amidst the ideal of a revolution, its practical realization and how it keeps
living through the events, struggles, theories, and effects it prompted; a
dialectic that is inherent not only in the Russian Revolution but in every
revolutionary process. By taking the Russian Revolution as the prime
example of revolutionary processes, the articles of this volume attempt to
acknowledge the legacy of the Russian Revolution, come to terms with
its failures and sketch the future of revolutionary thinking and practice in
its aftermath.
The different names that were attributed throughout the years to
the Russian Revolution bear witness to the different contours that it
acquired and help us to better understand the multiperspectivism that
accompanies all revolutionary moments. This diversity is indicative not
only of the aspirations that the Russian Revolution brought about. It
is also indicative of the impact that the different moments and phases
the Russian Revolution as a process of events comprise of had on its
opponents both in its country of origin and—more importantly—on
a global scale. Seen this way and whether in the form of the October
Revolution, or in the form of the more bureaucratic Great October
Socialist Revolution (as this event was recorded in the Soviet liter-
ature), or in the form of the more common Bolshevik Revolution, or
the October Uprising, or the Bolshevik Coup, the Russian Revolution
remained the proof stone of every revolutionary event and the measure
par excellence for generations of perspective revolutionaries all over the
world in the years that followed it. Its failures were instrumentalized as
furnishing proof of the insufficiency of any attempted revolution and
became the knock-out argument against the ideal of change through
revolution in general. Its successes were hailed as the self-evidence
of revolutionary tactics and as the confirmation of why it is worthy to
go against established regimes and ways of thinking. At the same time
though, the Russian Revolution’s both successes and failures resulted to
the Russian Revolution becoming every revolution’s sword of Damocles.
Henceforth, every subsequent revolution would have to measure itself
with it, finding itself always either deficient or already one step ahead.
 1 PREFACE 3

Caught between imitation, optimization, continuation, or rejection,

Lenin’s Bolsheviks became the scapegoat, the ground and the projection
screen that legitimized mistakes, suppression, and interventionism, just
as they instigated utopias, hopes, and political change that dominate the
political stage until today.
The ambivalence concerning the reception and legacy of the Russian
Revolution could not be made more palpable than in the different com-
memorations that took place or were deafeningly absent on the event’s
centennial anniversary. Unlike the broadly celebrated commemorations
to, for example, Karl Marx’s 200th birthday or the 50th anniversary of
May ’68, the events dedicated—no matter how favorably—to the cen-
tennial of the Russian Revolution could be counted on one hand.
Though Marx, as the father of modern critique, and May ’68, as the
umbrella movement that irreversibly changed everyday life, apparently
receive the well-deserved unconditional support for their pivotal histor-
ical role, a lacuna is to be observed concerning the Russian Revolution;
a lacuna pertaining to the ongoing discomfort of how to address it as
an event. Seen this way, it is not just an epistemological gap which is at
play here and which forces us to question how we should observe past
historical facts, events, or narratives. It is also a matter of self-realization
that the events we choose to shed light upon, revisit, and commemo-
rate, come back to us by making us aware of our own socio-political and
ideological shifts. From this perspective and in a move that turns the
tables, the absence of the Russian revolution from the agendas of uni-
versities, galleries, city celebrations, blogs etc. is not to be considered
solely as proof of the withering away or always inexistent role of the
Russian Revolution. Rather, this absence ought to be regarded, as Karl
Schlögel in an apologetic and very personal outcry points out directly
at the beginning of this volume, as the missing proof of our own grow-
ing disinterest to engage in passionate controversies. To be sure, it is not
just us, the ones supposedly living in the revolution’s aftermath, who
see ourselves confronted with such an excruciating question. What the
Russian Revolution really was, is a question with which even its protag-
onists just a couple of years after its accomplishment were concerned,
since the very legitimization of the revolution depended on answering
this question. Given that what really happened and what was thought
to have happened was not necessarily in accordance with one another,
the revolution, as it supposedly had happened, had to be restaged or—as
Sylvia Sasse also in this volume argues—reenacted. Only then could the
4 T. TELIOS ET AL.

Revolution forfeit its contingent characteristics, invest in its post facto

uniqueness, present itself as the realization of avant-gardist theories and
claim its true and designated role: to be(come) the deliberate and not
coincidental beginning of a new world inhabited by a new (Hu)man. As
ambiguous, problematic, instrumental, ideological, authoritarian, and
manipulative as such reenactment(s) might be, for generations of rev-
olutionaries in Russia and abroad it was not the reenacted but, on the
contrary, the need for reenactment that was a myth. For what they, the
ones living in the revolution or the ones awaiting or preparing the next
one, already experienced was not a myth that had to be transformed to
reality, but a previously unknown reality. Whether this new reality took
on the form of finally belonging somewhere, of being able to experi-
ence each one’s sexuality, of feeling awake for the first time, or of free-
dom and equality as deliverance from domination and exploitation (as
authors of this volume argue), the Russian revolution was not a scission
that needed to be legitimized. On the contrary, its discrediting was part
of a propaganda that needed to be successfully substantiated; a propa-
ganda which became reality when taking into account the subsequent
juridicization or habitualization of the revolution as the Soviet state. As
such, as the disenchantment of a propaganda being none anymore, the
Russian Revolution needed to be eradicated from collective memory and
outcasted to a historical limbo from where it could not endanger political
history anymore. The difficult situation in which contemporary Russia
found itself in regard to the commemoration of this event illustrates the
tragicity concerning the reception of (not only) the Russian Revolution.
Given the last considerations, it would appear reasonable—when
attempting to retell or reconsider the Russian Revolution—to try to
do it in a collective manner. After all, the Russian Revolution, like any
revolution, was a collective event. Unlike any other revolution before
it, the Russian Revolution developed and broadened the notion of the
collective, brought new collectives to light, granted them with right(s),
and epitomized collectives, collective action and collective processes as
the sole core element and touchstone of (any) revolution. Nevertheless,
there is a character to which a paramount role in the course of those
events has always been accorded to; a character, who is apparent in
every attempt to reconstruct the Russian Revolution or to think of any
future ones. This person is none other than Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, bet-
ter known as Lenin, a person that, just like the revolution he helped to
accomplish, still plays a determining role when theorizing the events that
 1 PREFACE 5

he set in motion. Seen this way, it is not surprising that a series of arti-
cles in this volume occupy themselves with him, his deeds, his writings,
his role in the course that the revolution took, his influence during his
absolute reign, the debates concerning his success, the role he played in
forging the Marxism-Leninism doctrine, and, last but not least, how this
doctrine was shaped to find the next revolutions and how Lenin, as the
revolutionary person par excellence, influenced any later understanding
of what a charismatic figure is. In the articles of this volume, Lenin may
appear as the main interlocutor of radical feminists trying to implement
communist sexual ethics as opposed to a conservative bourgeois moral-
ity; as though he brought the law to its conceptual limits by instituting
the state as a collective form, thereby rupturing the individualist foun-
dations of conventional bourgeois law; or as having cast an everlasting
shadow over generations of critical thinking from the Frankfurt School
to Hannah Arendt who fought ardently to keep the revolutionary uto-
pia alive. At the same time though, Lenin is held responsible for putting
an end to any discussion concerning how the revolution could be alter-
natively founded; for betraying the revolution he completed by putting
it to sleep; for being so paradoxically optimistic so as to become almost
blind concerning authoritarian power structures that congealed the rev-
olution back to what it was supposed to abolish; for universalizing the
proletariat and thus undermining its diverse-collectivist revolutionary
potential: last but not least, for functioning contra eo as the necessary
and missing inspiration for fascists and national-socialists to achieve their
goals.
Given the ambivalences observed not only during the actual course of
events, but also in its reception, its commemoration and, in the legacy of
its leading figure, it would not be farfetched to argue that a gravestone
lays heavy over the revolution and the bodies of the revolutionaries bur-
ied with it. Did the secret discussions between Lenin and the Left Socialist
Revolutionaries during the ten days that shook the world and that would
later lead to revoking the peasants’ Nakaz in the context of the New
Economic Policy already lay the gravestone of the revolution? Or did the
death of the revolution occur later? Or is rather Trotzki responsible for
the revolution’s entombment as soon as he ordered Mikhail Tukhachevsky
to attack the sailors in Kronstadt on the 5th of March 1921? Were the
remnants of the party structure responsible for embalming the already
dead revolution when they stood by Stalin during the 1937–1938
trials? Or did Stalin kill the revolution on the 7th of March 1934,
6 T. TELIOS ET AL.

when he allowed for Art 121 to be added to the criminal code for the
entire Soviet Union that recriminalized and prohibited (male) homo-
sexuality with up to five years of hard labor in prison? Was the Decree
of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Council of 11.23.1955 on the abo-
lition of the prohibition of abortion that was revoking Stalin’s 1936 law
banning the right to abortion that the Bolsheviks had legalized for the
first time worldwide in October 1920 with their Decree on Women’s
Healthcare a revival of the revolutionary process or the awakening of
a zombie that was to die again and again a few months later when by
02:00 on October 24, 1956 and under the command of Georgy Zhukov
Soviet tanks entered Budapest? Or were—to stay in Soviet Union’s inter-
ventions—Budapest, Prague and Warsaw further gravestones of a revo-
lution that continued to be revived in Cuba, Angola, South Africa, the
Middle East, etc.? The list could be continued ad infinitum, yet maybe
the sheer facts are not necessarily the best or only place to look for the
results or consequences of a revolution—especially considering how
susceptible the facts are to instrumentalized interpretation and politi-
cal manipulation. Philosophical contemplation, theoretical differenti-
ation, political-engaged thinking are also loci of revolutionary practices,
processes, and action. The revolt against the metaphysically dominated
nineteenth century; the insurgency of contingency against prescribed tel-
eology and quietist messianism; the dialectization of theory and ­practice
against the primacy of either theoretical contemplation or practical deci-
sionism; the upheaval of immanence against transcendence; the uprising
of new subjects like the working class, the women, the people of color,
the (de-, post-)colonialized, the LGBTQA+, or the antihuman actants;
the abolishment of the integral and sovereign (supra-)individual agent
as a motor of history; the demolition of the “revolution or transforma-
tion” dualism; the realization that different forms of revolution are to
be accepted alongside the most conventional and traditional forms of a
sudden and violent rupture since the form a revolution has to acquire
depends at the end on what has to be revolutionized; the visibilization
of the invisible, the misrepresented, the underrepresented; the incorpo-
ration of the global and the supplementation of the individual with the
global etc.; all these developments in theory are forms of revolution and
were set in motion exactly thanks to the ambivalences and the failures
of the revolutionary thinking that was put into action in St. Petersburg
and was monumentalized and domesticated as Leningrad. Furthermore,
when nowadays “Leningrad” is conjured neither the Russian, nor the
 1 PREFACE 7

Bolshevik, nor the Great October Socialist Revolution is evoked, but

rather the possibility to realize the infinite project of an already com-
menced but never accomplished revolution. Samuel Beckett’s ­liberating
and unregrettable “Fail again Fail Better” is still accurate and maybe even
more relevant in our current anti-revolutionary times, which are domi-
nated by a politics of appeasement. It is in this spirit that the contribu-
tions concluding this volume have to be understood. Condoning the
powerlessness of both the practical subject and the ideal subject of the
revolution the authors of this section attempt to reenable revolutionary
practices that are henceforth to be found maybe also beyond the author-
itative ideal of a radical transformation qua revolution. Here, revolution
lies in grasping its unmediated, unprepared, urgent, and intrusive realiza-
tion hic et nunc; in the repetition of every day practices that carry within
themselves the possibility to change their own course and through that
the context within which they occur(ed); in realizing that revolution can
only be a holistic, horizontal, inclusive project where communism is to
be associated less with the secretive decision-making processes of a polit-
buro but rather with the social-ontological production of a revolutionary
subjectivity.
Surely, there are innumerable things to say regarding the Russian
Revolution. Nevertheless, the aforementioned makes it plausible to
frame a book considering the failures, the legacies, and the future of
(the Russian) revolution based on following three phenomenological
and somewhat descriptive, rather than normative prescriptive, notions in
order to avoid politically colored and emotionally heated debates: recon-
sidering, retelling, and reenabling.
In the first section, we wish to go back and reconsider the Russian
revolution through the eyes of its actors, its agents, its theorists, and its
propagandists. The first question to arise is if it is at all possible to recon-
sider the Russian revolution. As already mentioned, Karl Schlögel asks
in his article “Beyond the Horizon: The Russian Revolution Seen from
Afar” if the October revolution is drifting away into a past that is can
no longer possible be grasped. Taking into account that history takes
place not only sequentially, but also simultaneously, we see ourselves—
according to Schlögel—challenged to rethink the forms of narration. We
must question the linear process of historic development and cope with
Ernst Bloch’s “simultaneity of dissimultaneity.” For only then can we get
rid of the linearity and sequentiality of the historic processes and admit
contingency as the center of all things happening. From this follows the
8 T. TELIOS ET AL.

challenge to develop a narrative adequate to the complexity of the histor-

ical process: the simultaneity of shocks and repercussions, the staccato of
events and the continuity of longue durée, the take-off and decadence,
the military mobilization and destabilization, the apocalyptic nightmares
and bright utopias, the discipline of professional revolutionaries and the
chaotic events out of control.
With this problematic as a backbone, the articles of this chapter
attempt to scrutinize the ambivalences of revolution in four distinctive
phenomena that pertain to the revolution’s historicity: forms of sexual-
ity that transgress the conventional sexual practices dictated by bourgeois
morality; religion as on the one hand obfuscating and on the other hand
as a necessary vector of transformative critique; forms of law that probe
whether law could be normatively binding without reverting to oppres-
sive or disciplinary practices; and, last but not least, revolution as a life
form and to which extent there can be a continuous temporality inherent
to this life form after its establishment.
Concerning the revolution’s historicity, what is at stake here is
whether there is a way to differentiate between what really happened,
what was thought to have occurred—and what was staged as having hap-
pened. As Sylvia Sasse argues in her article “Reenacting the Revolution?
Theater and Politics of Repetition” the Bolsheviks found it paramount to
create a narrative that was as “realistic” and “documentative” as possible.
But—and these are the crucial questions—what is to be done when real-
ism and the document cannot refer to an original? How do you deal with
the fact, that when the historical event that is supposed to be repeated
never occurred in a manner suitable for remembrance? Starting with
Alexander Blok, Yuri Lotman, and Vladimir Mayakovski and by taking
similar aesthetic endeavors like Vsevolod Pudovkin’s Konec Peterburga
(The End of St. Petersburg), Sergei Eisenstein’s Oktjabr’ (Oktober), and
Sergei Bondarchuk’s Krasnye kolokola (Red Bells) into account the article
focuses on the work of Nikolai Evreinov. As Sasse argues, the “Storming
of the Winter Palace” is not a reenactment but rather an as if reenact-
ment, a staged production that only pretends to be a repetition of a
historical event.
Concerning sexual ethics, the economic goals of the dictatorship of
the proletariat were pervaded by the reform efforts of communist intel-
lectuals and leftist activists, which were apparently successful in the Soviet
Union and focused on the human body as a biopolitical factor. As Enikő
Darabos argues in her article entitled “Revolution in Sexual Ethics:
 1 PREFACE 9

Communism and the ‘Sex Problem’ (1920–1930),” the emancipatory

proposals of Alexandra Kollontai, Elfriede Friedländer (pen-name: Ruth
Fischer), or Wilhelm Reich constituted a progressive sexual ethical sys-
tem that required a harsh reformist attitude on behalf of the communist
believers, politicians, and activists of the time. By deciphering the ambiv-
alence pervading the progressive initiations, they meant to rearrange the
social matrix of marriage, sexual relations, gender roles, sexual morality,
prostitution, and parenting. Yet the review of the theoretical assump-
tions regarding sexual ethics and the socialist/communist parties’ atti-
tudes toward the setting up of a proletarian sexual morality brought to
light and furnished proof of the often inconsistent and in many aspects
obscure party ideology of the Russian Bolsheviks, the Austrian Socialists,
and the German Communists, who thwarted the development of a new
sexual political directive as much as they promoted it.
Concerning religion, the suspicion that a theological framework
informs the leftist revolutionary projects was used to denounce them as
crypto-religious movements with otherworldly objectives. Evidence from
the protocols recorded by Svetlana Aleksievich suggests that the post-so-
viet experience is indeed characterized by a feeling of lost faith in some
transcendent goal. In his article “Revolution and Salvation” Christian
Schmidt argues that the Russian Revolution inherited theological con-
ceptions from the Hegelian concept of history. Contrary to widespread
diagnosis, however, such a heritage draws more on the political expertise
present in the theological tradition than by establishing a transcendent
knowledge about the course of history. Hegel and the Marxists knew
rather well that an historical project such as a revolution presupposes a
goal that is present in the actual world but aims at the profound trans-
formation of this very actuality. Ideas as freedom and equality evoke the
vision of a world that is liberated from domination and exploitation. As
the religious movements before them, the revolutionaries had to create
a community that was devoted to their historical aim in order to reach
deliverance from the existing ills. Therefore, so the argument, the com-
munist party was the failed attempt to create a militant organization with
such universal pretensions.
In the case of law, the dominant question was how to understand
the legal character not of any dictatorship, but of the dictatorship of
the proletariat. As Naveen Kanalu argues in his “Law, Absolute Will,
and the ‘Withering of the State’: Sovereignty at the Limits of Lenin’s
‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’,” Lenin formulated the Dictatorship of
10 T. TELIOS ET AL.

the Proletariat as a phase of transition from the capitalist state-system

to a communist society. Therefore, and since the dictatorship was not
invested in the legal form of the state that eventually was to be over-
come, the dictatorship was neither legal nor illegal, but extra-legal in
nature. The latter posed a series of questions to the early Soviet thinkers
who tried fervently to provide this quasi-state structure with the neces-
sary juridical foundations. Kanalu traces the idea of the imposition of the
proletariat’s absolute will back to the political concept of “despotism”
in Montesquieu’s Esprit des lois. Montesquieu’s despotism is of course a
limiting concept of government, which is marked by an absence of legal
institutions and the absolute force of the “prince’s” will, which is unhin-
dered by law. This idea, which remained obscure in nineteenth-century
theories of socialism, was however resurrected by Lenin in the 1917
work, The State and Revolution. Lenin’s marxist assumption according
to which the state had to wither away is regarded as underpinning the
extra-legal form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Through the lat-
ter and by revisiting Soviet legal thinkers like Evgeny Pashukanis, the
essay argues for a dialectical understanding of the paradox of law under
dictatorship: the rule by decrees in the post-revolutionary context, the
role of the Soviets in decision-making, and the gradual juridicization of
the Soviet state. Through these historical issues, Kanalu illustrates the
difficulties in conceiving the relation between sovereignty and law in
post-revolutionary transitions.
The last phenomenon at which revolution’s paradoxality becomes
apparent is thematized by Dieter Thomä in his “What Is Life Like After
Revolution? Administration, Habit, and Democracy in Lenin’s The State
and Revolution—and Beyond.” In his paper, Thomä analyzes the sce-
nario for a post-revolutionary society as developed in Lenin’s The State
and Revolution. Lenin heavily relies on Marx and Engels’s metaphors
of waking up and falling asleep: Post-revolutionary society is marked
by a grand awakening and a conversion of dreams into reality, while the
state is said to fall asleep or wither away. Lenin applies these metaphors
yet applies them in a strangely inverted manner. Instead of embracing
agency, he argues for a new regime of “habit,” which has sedating effects
on humans, while the state survives its demise and returns under the title
of “administration.” Lenin’s plea for “habit” and “administration” is
discussed in a broader context of other philosophical accounts reaching
 1 PREFACE 11

from Kant to Hegel, Max Weber, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hannah Arendt,

and beyond. These critical considerations lead to some general findings
on the status of moral agency in revolutionary change whereby Trotsky’s
account of permanent revolution with its experimentalist and theatrical
implications is a case in point here. The paper concludes by discussing
the intricate relation between revolution, democracy, and the state.
The second section of the volume concentrates on how the revolution
was retold in the aftermath of its accomplishment not only by its sym-
pathizers but also its opponents. What is important here is to observe
not only what kind of radical, but also reactionary politics was thereby
inspired and how it legitimized conservative theoretical undertakings. In
contrast to this, the section analyzes how the revolution triggered critical
theorists to pave new paths of radical thinking that were conceived as
methods to overcome the revolution’s failures and impasses. Last but not
least, this section discusses how the revolution still casts a shadow over its
country of origin and how even its commemoration still poses a threat to
every well-established political order.
In his provocative intervention “German and Jewish Conspiracies:
The October Revolution from the perspective of the Italian Fascists and
the German National Socialists,” Ulrich Schmid traces the reception of
the October revolution in Italian Fascism and German National-Socialism.
The leaders of both movements were quick to denounce the Bolshevik
coup as a foreign conspiracy. Hitler highlighted the Jewish origin of the
Russian revolutionaries. While for Mussolini, the October revolution was
a German plot—Mussolini mistook the Jewish last names for German
ones and even mixed up Lenin with the Menshevik leader Tsederbaum.
Even though Fascists and Nazis fiercely opposed the Leninist ideology,
they were deeply impressed with the effective seizure of political power in
Russia. Both Mussolini and Hitler were not eager to accept the fact that
they were appointed as heads of governments by the king or the presi-
dent, respectively. Rather, they actually stressed the revolutionary charac-
ter of their new political systems. As the article concludes, however, there
were clear differences in the concepts of the state that was to be produced
by the self-declared revolutions in the three countries: While in Soviet
Russia, the state was supposed to wither away, in Italy the state was con-
ceived as the ultimate goal of the Fascist society, and in Nazi Germany the
state was expected to transform itself eventually into an eternal “Reich.”
12 T. TELIOS ET AL.

In the next intervention “A Narrative Theory for the October

Revolution (From Maugham to Benjamin and Back),” Tatjana Jukić
argues, by taking Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden as a point of depar-
ture, how the October Revolution fails to consolidate in the discourses
of history and philosophy. Instead, its intellectual consolidation seems,
according to Jukić, to hinge on narrative theory—a proposition implicit
in Maugham’s account of the October Revolution. Interestingly, Jukić
also finds this idea in Carl Schmitt’s writing, who suggests by analyzing
the figures of Hamlet or Hecuba that political modernity may be prem-
ised on a relation forged between narration and revolution. Tellingly,
Walter Benjamin identifies a similar configuration in Maugham’s
Ashenden with a tacit invitation to examine it against his own narrative
theory (of modernity) presented in The Storyteller. Rather than reveal-
ing the October Revolution to be a somewhat disappointing heiress to
the French Revolution and to its dazzling effect on modern history and
philosophy, this examination shows that the October Revolution con-
fronts twentieth-century modernity with the prerogatives of the English
Revolution, as expounded by Schmitt, and possibly exhausts the logic of
modernity and of revolution.
A different approach is to be observed in the works and writings of
theorists engaged in critical thought and proposing a radical transfor-
mation of society. Marie-Josée Lavallée’s paper “October and the
Prospects for Revolution. The Views of Arendt, Adorno, and Marcuse”
explores the theoretical positions of Hannah Arendt, Theodor W.
Adorno and Herbert Marcuse on revolution and the issue of social and
political change. A close reading of their main writings and of a selection
of posthumously published materials, including conferences, discussions,
drafts, and letters, testifies that their reflections on revolution must be
read as a “dialogue” with the experience of the October Revolution. As
it is argued, these thinkers offer a comprehensive analysis of the reasons
for the failure of the first successful revolution of the twentieth century
to bring about social justice, equality, and freedom. On the one hand,
they consider the empirical conditions in which the seizure of power
occurred and that also determined the subsequent development of the
Soviet state. On the other hand, they reflect the role of theory and the
weight of ideology, whose roots are to be found in Marxian, Marxist,
and Leninist precepts and ideas. The article is divided in two sections.
The first part of the paper is devoted to the shadow that the October
Revolution continued to cast over Arendt’s, Adorno’s, and Marcuse’s
 1 PREFACE 13

pondering of the prospects for revolution, and how it reshaped their

thinking on new empirical and theoretical bases in hope to avoid the rep-
etition of similar pitfalls. In turn, the second part explores their modi-
fied conceptions of revolution, which—as Lavallée plausibly argues—still
remain enlightening today.
In a similar vein, Tora Lane lets the radicalization of theory encoun-
ter the problematic of remembrance in her article “Memory politics and
the ‘politics of memory’.” In opposition to the memory politics that
seeks to frame the historical narrative of Communism and the revolution,
this article discusses the possibility of a different memory of the Russian
Revolution. With reference to Derrida’s notion of “politics of memory”
in Spectres of Marx and Nancy’s existentialist reconfiguration of commu-
nality in The Inoperative Community, Lane proposes to understand the
Russian Revolution as an idea that could retrieve a memory of the com-
mon as being-in-common. Although this idea was not prominent in offi-
cial Bolshevik propaganda, Lane shows in close readings how this idea
can be found in the literary works of the Soviet writer Andrey Platonov.
The last comment on the consequences of retelling the Russian
Revolution is provided by Stephan Rindlisbacher in his article “Into
Historical Limbo: The Legacy of the October Revolution in Russia.”
As he diagnoses, the commemoration of the October Revolution last
autumn in Russia was highly ambivalent. On the one hand, symbols
of the revolutionary past were visible everywhere. On the other hand,
the authorities were only half-heartedly engaged in the commemo-
ration of the event. The focus of the current commemoration was—as
Rindlisbacher argues—to reconcile the heterogeneous narratives of
Russian history and to emphasize the need for a strong state. Based
on media reports, official communications and his own observations,
Rindlisbacher takes a closer look at the forms of commemoration or
non-commemoration in different social fields (public spaces, museums,
academia, and educational internet platforms) and analyzes how the
complex interaction between silencing and performance evokes this kind
of blurring. His verdict after this analysis is following: the memory of
Red October is still pushed into historical limbo, into a no-man’s-land,
from where it cannot endanger current politics.
Picking up this strain of thought, the third and last section of this
volume is dedicated to the question whether the Russian Revolution is
thought to hinder or inspire current revolutionary theory and politics—
and what kind of political thought and action can be reenabled through
14 T. TELIOS ET AL.

those considerations. In his article “The Concepts of Revolution,”

Geoffroy de Lagasnerie commences from the assumption that previous
ways of experiencing politics were structured by a feeling of revolution-
ary hope, while post-revolutionary politics is increasingly marked by an
experience of powerlessness. For Lagasnerie, this feeling of disempow-
erment and the subsequent questioning of the effectiveness of radical
transformative practices is linked to the manner in which the revolution-
ary ideal functions today, and the way in which it regulates our political
practices. As he argues, the image or idea of the revolution we adhere
to (and the diagnosis of the present and future upon which it is based)
actually prevents us from acting radically and from perceiving and partic-
ipating in the struggles that are unfolding as we speak. In a nutshell, the
ongoing search and imperative for a transformation qua revolution does
not allow us to act and generates feelings of powerlessness in us. This
brings him to reconsider the interconnections of politics, action, and rad-
icality today. Finally, he suggests that a systemless Marcusism and “gen-
eral leaking” might provide us with a theoretical framework and radical
praxis that is capable to readdress this complex.
For Christoph Menke, the question that urgently demands an answer
is much more fundamental and pertains to asking what makes a revo-
lution possible. In his contribution “The Possibility of the Revolution,”
this question coincides with the question of the subject that is able to
bring a revolution about. As he argues, any attempt to answer this ques-
tion is faced with the following aporia: The subject of the revolution can
neither be identified with its historically produced social form, nor can it
be the subject “as such,” as the power of negativity prior to history and
society. The way out of this aporia is—for Menke—to be found in the
idea of a transcendental turn of subjectivity. As the article argues, the rev-
olution is the transcendental usage of the subject’s historically acquired
and socially formed capacities. The possibility of the revolution lies solely
in the revolutionizing of one’s possibilities (as abilities).
The next chapter attempts to provide some practical insights concern-
ing the revolutionizing of possibilities and how revolutions are brought
about. Donatella della Porta’s “Time intensification in revolutionary
dynamics” makes a case of how protest campaigns linked to episodes of
democratization are often described as sudden events: surprise, excite-
ment, and innovation are terms often used to describe the eventful pro-
cess of democratization, as the times are perceived as exceptional. She
suggests that one major transformation during those events is what we
 1 PREFACE 15

can conceptualize as “time intensification” and that relevant reflections

on this topic can be found in different branches of the social sciences
that have addressed critical junctures at the macro level, eventful pro-
test at the meso level, and signaling mechanisms at the micro level.
Bridging those three levels, della Porta argues that important changes
are produced at the meso level, where eventful protest interrupts rou-
tines. Acting collectively, social movements can be seen as producing
critical junctures at the macro level, where structures become more liq-
uid. The implication at the micro level is that actors look for signals of
others’ thoughts and behaviors that might guide their own choices. In
order to demonstrate this, della Porta analyzes activists’ perception
of time by means of in-depth interviews carried out with activists from
two Central Eastern European countries that can be considered as being
paradigmatic for such sudden events (Czechoslovakia and the German
Democratic Republic [GDR]). As already shown in her recent Where did
the Revolution go? published in 2017, this immanent and performative
unraveling of revolutionary processes is not western or Eurocentric, but
ought to be considered as being inherent to every revolutionary pro-
cess since the same findings can be observed as being applicable—after a
cross-area and cross-time comparison—at two (more troubled) episodes
of eventful democratization like the ones that took place in Egypt and
Tunisia in 2011. Furthering her previous work, the quintessence of della
Porta’s article included in this volume lies in realizing that revolutionary
temporality is depending on endogenous dynamics that unfold in a series
of contingent choices that in their turn result in unexpected, abrupt and
open-ended change.
The book ends with Thomas Telios’ “Postscript: Communist
Subjectivity and the Politics of Collectiversalism.” After acknowledging
the legacy of both the French and the Russian Revolution in establishing
collectivity as the core element of revolutionary process par excellence,
Telios argues that both ‘the people’ and “the party” were paradigmatic
collectivities brought forward by the French and the Russian Revolution
yet failed to implement the totality of their goals. The reason for this,
was, according to Telios, the fact that in the course of the revolutions
they instantiated, those collectives were universalized, thereby forfeit-
ing their collective and diverse character and, ultimately, falling back
onto mere supra-individual entities. Though this can be easily attrib-
uted to adhering to a notion of subjectivity that bestows both the indi-
vidual and the supra-individual subject with a metaphysically grounded
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the regulation of the pendulum is performed by adding to, or
diminishing the mercury, in the part where the tube is widest.”
In addition to the foregoing description of the mechanism of this Time-piece,
obligingly furnished to the Writer of these Memoirs by Mr. Voight, he has been
likewise favoured by Robert Patterson, Esq. director of the mint, with the
following account of the same extremely accurate instrument, which will
greatly assist the reader in understanding the principles on which it is
constructed.

“In the Astronomical Clock made by Dr. Rittenhouse, and now in

the Hall of the Philosophical Society, I do not know,” says Mr.
Patterson, “that there is any thing peculiar, which requires
mentioning, except the pendulum; especially the apparatus for
counteracting the effects of change of temperature.

“For this purpose, there is fastened on the pendulum-rod (which is

of iron or steel) a glass tube of about thirty-six inches long; bent in
the middle into two parallel branches, at the distance of about an
inch from each other; the bend being placed downwards,
immediately above the bob of the pendulum. The tube is open at one
end, and close at the other: the arm which is close at top is filled,
within about two inches of the lower end or bend, with alcohol, and
the rest of the tube, within about one half of an inch of the upper
extremity or open end, with mercury; a few inches of the tube, at this
extremity, being about twice the width of the rest of the tube.

“Now, when the heat of the air encreases, it will expand the
pendulum-rod; and would thus lower the centre of oscillation, and
cause the clock to go slower: but this effect is completely
counteracted, by the expansion of the alcohol chiefly, and of the
mercury in part; which equally raises the centre of oscillation; and
thus preserves an equable motion in all the variable temperatures of
the atmosphere.”
 Description of an Hygrometer; first contrived and used by Dr.
Rittenhouse, about the year 1782.[A45]

The essential part of this Hygrometer consists of two very thin

strips of wood, about a foot long and half an inch broad, glued
together, in such a manner that the grain or fibres of the one shall be
at right angles with the other; so that when this compound strip was
placed in erect position, the grain of one of the pieces of wood would
have a vertical, and that of the other an horizontal position. One end
of this simply constructed instrument is to be made fast to a wall, or
plane board, with the edge outward, and the other end is to be at
liberty to move.

Then, as moisture has little or no effect on the length of a piece of

wood, or in the direction of its fibres, but a very sensible one on its
breadth, or transverse direction, especially when thin, it follows, that
on any increase of moisture in the air, this Hygrometer becomes bent
into a curve, convex on the side of the transverse fibres; and vice
versâ. The degrees, from the greatest dryness to the greatest
moisture, are to be marked on a curve drawn on the board or wall,
described by the motion of the free end of the Hygrometer; and an
index, attached to the moving end of it, will point out, on this
graduated arch, the existing state of the atmosphere at the moment,
in relation to its condition of moisture or dryness: The relative degree
of either, on the smallest change from the one to the other, will be
indicated with much precision; and probably, with much more
uniformity and truth, in the results of long-continued observations,
than can be attained to by the use of Hygrometers constructed of
metal, or any other substance than wood.[A46]

Astronomical Observations, made in the years 1776, 1777 and 1778,

at Philadelphia, by the Rev. Dr. W. Smith, and David Rittenhouse,
John Lukens, and Owen Biddle, Esquires: copied from a
manuscript account of those Observations, drawn up by Dr. Smith;
never before published.

ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS, 1776.

 This year exhibiting little else but scenes of confusion and distress
amidst the calamities of an unhappy war, scarce any attention was
paid, by the members of the American Philosophical Society, to
astronomical or any other literary subjects. It was agreed, however,
by Mr. Rittenhouse, Mr. Lukens and myself, to look out whether
Mercury would touch the Sun’s disc the 2d of November this year; as
a very small difference of latitude from what the Tables give, would
have carried the planet clear of the Sun: but, from our observation of
the transit of this planet, in 1769, we had reason to expect it would
pass further on the Sun, than Halley’s Catalogue gives it.

The following were the observations made, viz.

Nov. 2d, 1776. I got ready the two f. reflector with the largest
object-glass, and shortest eye-tube, magnifying about 95 times.

At 4h per clock—No appearance of the planet on the Sun, and did

not expect it until about half an hour past 4; but as Mr. Lukens and
Mr. Rittenhouse had not yet come to me in the college, I sent to
hasten them.

At 4h 5′ per clock—took my eye from the tube to adjust it, and fix
the smoked glass, to give clearer vision, the atmosphere being hazy.
Having fixed the smoked glass in the proper place, so as to prevent
its sliding or falling with its own weight, and before I had applied my
eye to the telescope again, Mr. Rittenhouse came in; and I desired
him to see if the focus and dark glass were all suitable to his eye, as
they were to mine. I had been about 4′ employed in this adjustment.

At 4h 9′, Mr. Rittenhouse having put his eye to the tube,

immediately called out, that he saw the planet on the Sun.
h
At 4 10′ per clock, we judged ☿ had entered one-third of his
diameter on the Sun.

At 4h 17′, we clearly noted the internal contact of the limbs.

 At 4h 45′, we judged the least distance of the nearest limbs to be
rather more than one diameter of ☿; or that the distance of the limbs
was 10″. We-did not apply the micrometer to make any measures; as
we presumed that we could judge the distance as accurately by the
eye, as it could be measured; on account of the haziness of the
atmosphere and the small altitude of the Sun. We kept viewing the
planet till sun-set, the distance of the limbs continuing so nearly the
same, that we could scarce perceive any diminution thereof; though
we were sure also, that it did increase above 10″.[A47]

The following were the Observations made for ascertaining the

Going of the Clock, by William Smith.

Equal Altitudes.
dh ′ ″ h ′ \″
Nov. 39 14 9 2 37 12 ☉ on Merid. per clock h ′ ″
15 44 2 35 35 or mean noon 11 55 40
Equat. Correspond. Alt. + 14.4
Correct Noon per Clock 11 55
54.4

49 32 48 20 56 Mean Noon, or ☉ on 11 56 53
34 33 19 13 Merid. per. Clock
36 14 17 31 Equat. of equal + 13.8
37 20 16 23 Altitudes
14 39
40 54 2 12 53 Correct Noon per Clock 11 57 6.8

78 51 9 9 29 Mean 12 0 19
Noon
52 37 80 per Equat Eq. Alt. + 12
Clock
54 1 3 6 37 12 0 19
Cor. 12 0 31
Noon
per Clock
 Per Meridian Mark.
d h ′ ″
8 ☉ West Limb on Merid. 12 0 36
East Limb on do. 12 2 52
—-——
Centre 12 1 44
Correct Noon per Clock.

Applied to Going of Clock.

Nov. 3d, at Noon ′ ″
Clock slower than ☉ 4 5.6 Daily gaining of the Clock over
☉ faster than mean time 16 11 mean or equal time.
Clock faster than m. time 12 5.4

4th,
Clock slower than ☉ 2 53.2 ′ ″
☉ faster than mean time 16 9 From 3d to 4th 1 10.4
Clock faster than m. time 13 15.8

7th,
Clock faster than ☉ 0 31
From 4th mean to
☉ faster than mean time 16 00 7 that a mean 1 5.1
Clock faster than m. time 16 31 per day

8th,
Clock faster than ☉ 1 44
☉ faster than mean time 15 56 From 7th to 8th 1 9
Clock faster than m. time 17 40
Thus the Clock gains at a
mean, per day, 1′ 8″.

Whence, Nov. 2d, at noon, the Clock was 10′ 57″ faster than mean
time, gaining 68″ per day; and 4h 17′ gains 12″, wherefore at the
internal contact, the Clock was 11′ 9″ faster than mean time.

Whence the contact was at 4h 5′ 51″ mean time; or 4h 21′ 2″

apparent time.

Eclipse of the Sun, January 9th, 1777.

The Gregorian Reflector, with the magnifying power of 95, was

made use of for this Observation; which, as well as the Observation
of the Transit of Mercury, was made in the College-Library, to which
the Telescope belongs.

While Mr. Rittenhouse was endeavouring to adjust the two-f.

reflector belonging to the Library of the city of Philadelphia, made by
Short, and which had been borrowed on this occasion, I observed
with the greatest certainty the first contact of ☾’s limb with the ☉,
which was shining very bright, and the telescope in the best order,
viz. at 8h 57′ 27″ per clock.

The same was visible, in about 3″ more, to Mr. Lukens, with the
equal altitude instrument, magnifying about 25 times.

Mr. Rittenhouse had not got the other reflector ready to observe
the beginning of the eclipse: but the end was observed by both of us
to the same instant, viz. at 11h 48′ 50″ per clock.

The clock, at noon, was 23″ slower than mean time, whence

Beginning of the Eclipse 8h 49′ 55″

Apparent time.
End of the same 11 41 15

N.B. The clock stopped once during the Observation, owing, it was
supposed, to the cold weather; but was oiled a little, and set a going
again by a stop-watch that beats seconds, and which was set with
the clock at the beginning of the eclipse: so that she lost no time.
She was examined at noon, and found as above by the meridian
mark. But this mark itself, having been lately shaken with the stormy
weather, is to be re-examined, and also equal altitudes taken the
following days.

The annexed micrometer measures were taken for determining

the quantity of the eclipse, chiefly by Mr. Rittenhouse. More would
have been taken, but the Sun was hid under clouds for about an
hour after the middle of the eclipse, and broke out again a little
before the end.

Micrometer Measures.
h ′ ″ inches. tenths. 500ths.
9 15 0 2 2 6
distances of the cusps.
31 0 3 1 ½

10 17 5 1 1 14 enlightened parts
22 0 1 1 23 remaining.

11 37 0 1 7 6
38 46 1 5 21 distances of the cusps.
42 26 1 2 18

Continuation of the Observations for adjusting the Clock.

Jan. 11th. W. limb on Merid. [A48]
☉’s
E. limb on do.
Centre on do.

Whence clock faster than mean time 0 1′ 46″ per merid. mark.

Equal Altitudes.
h ′ ″
20th. 9 37 20 59 49
39 1 58 6 Mean noon per clock 12 18 34
40 41 2 56 26
21st. W. limb on Merid. 12 20 3
E. limb on do. 22 22
Centre on do. 12 21 12.5
 Eq. Alt.
22d. 9 14 10 3 31 10 Mean noon per clock 12 23 50

Eclipse of the Sun, June 24, 1778: Observed by D. Rittenhouse,

John Lukens, Owen Biddle, and William Smith, at the College of
Philadelphia.

The morning being very cloudy, the beginning of the eclipse was
not seen.

At 10h 7′ 40″ per clock, the following micrometer-measure of the

enlightened parts was taken, while the Sun appeared for a few
minutes between clouds, viz. 1in. 9-10ths. 13-500ths. = 16′ 23″.

11h 6′ 57″ per clock end of eclipse distinctly seen, the Sun having
shone clearly for several minutes, the clouds now wholly dispersing,
and the remainder of the day continuing clear.

Observations upon the Clock.

h ′ ″
27th. ☉ on meridian per clock 11 54 50
☉’s app. time of passing meridian 12 2 33.5
Clock slow of app. time 0 7 43.5

July 2d. ☉ on meridian per clock 11 54 50.5

☉’s app. time of passing meridian 12 3 33
Clock slow of app. time 0 8 42.5

A versification of “The Zephyrs”—from Gesner’s Idyls;—a fragment:

copied from a loose scrap of paper, containing, in the hand-writing
of the late Dr. Rittenhouse, all but the three last verses; which have
been now added, by a lady.

First Zephyr.

Why, amidst these blooming roses,

Idly fluttering, dost thou stay?
Come with me to yonder valley,
There we’ll spend the cheerful day.
There, in purest crystal fountain,
Sportive, bathe the am’rous maids;
Where tall willows, on the margin,
Form the closest deepest shades.

Second Zephyr.

No, with thee I will not wander;

To the vale alone repair:
Fan the nymphs you so admire;
A sweeter task employs my care.
Here, in the bosom of these roses,
I cool my wings in pearly dew,
As I lightly skim them over,
Gath’ring all their fragrance too.

First Zephyr.

Your wings in dew of roses steep’d

With all their grateful fragrance stor’d;—
Can you find employment sweeter,
Than yonder cheerful nymphs afford?

Second Zephyr.

Yes, in this path, along the mount,

Each rosy morn a maid appears,
To yon lonely cot advancing,
A basket on her arm she bears.
Two tender infants, and their mother,
Are by her constant bounty fed:
A helpless widow, there residing,
From her receives her daily bread.
See! where she comes,—of all the graces,
The youngest and the fairest too;
Her cheeks, with sweetest blushes glowing,
 Are moist’ned with the morning dew.
I haste, with fragrant airs, so cooling,
To fan her tender glowing cheek,—
And kiss the pearly drops, while falling
From her blue eyes, so chaste and meek.[A49]

First Zephyr.

Yes! much more pleasing is your task;

I would imbrue my wings in dew,
And bear the fragrance of these flow’rs,
Melinda to refresh, like you.
But see! she breaks through yonder grove,
Refulgent as a summer’s morn;
Her step is grace—her lip of rose
The smiles of modest worth adorn.
Like you, transported, let me fan her;
Like you, admire the bounteous maid:
For, sure, a fairer face I never
Spread forth my cooling wings to aid.

Diploma.

Praeses et Professores Collegii, seu Universitatis, Gulielmi et

Mariæ, omnibus at quos præsentes literæ pervenerint, Salutem.—
Cum eum in finem gradus academici majoribus nostris prudenter
instituti fuerint, ut viri optimé meriti, seu in gremio nostræ matris
educati, seu aliundi bonarum artium disciplinis eruditi, istis insignibus
a literatorum vulgo secernerentur; sciatis, quod nos, ea sola quæ
possumus viâ, gradu Artium Magistri libenter studioséque concesso,
testamur quanti facimus Davidem Rittenhouse Philosophorum
Principem, qui ingenio nativo Machinam celeberrimam, motus et
phænomena cœlestium manifestius exhibentem, commentus est:—
Idcirco, in solenni convocatione, tricessimo die decembris, Anno
Domini millesimo septingentesimo octogesimo quarto, habito,
conspirantibus omnium suffragiis, eundem virum egregium, Davidem
Rittenhouse, Artium Magistrum creavimus et constituimus.—In
cujus rei testimonium, sigillum Universitatis, quo in hac parte utimur,
præsentibus apponi fecimus. Datum in domo nostræ convocationis,
anno domini, die et mense, prædictis.

J. Madison, Præses, et prof. Ma. and Nat. Phil. G. Wythe, Leg. et

Polit. Prof. Robertus Andrews, Math. Prof. Carolus Bellini,
Neot. Ling. Prof.

Diploma.

Præses et Curatores Collegii Neo-Cæsariensis, omnibus has

Literas lecturis, plurimam Satutem.

Quandoquidem æquum sit et ratione prorsus, consentaneum, ut ii

qui labore et studio bonas didicerunt artes præmia suis meritis digna
referant ut et ipsis benè sit, et aliorum provoceter industria.

Quando etiam huc potissimum spectant amplissima illa jura nostro

Collegio publico Diplomate collata. Quumque clarissimus vir David
Rittenhouse sit non tantum Moribus inculpatus et Ingenio insignis,
sed et sibi tantam in Artibus liberalibus cognitionem Industria
laudabili acquisivit, ut summos Honores Academicos probe
mereatur.

Idcirco notum sit omnibus, quod nos, Senatus-consulto Academico

nec non Facultatis Artium decreto, supradictum Davidem
Rittenhouse Titulo Graduque Doctoris in Legibus adornandum,
et dehinc pro Adepto et Doctore habendum volumus; cujus, hæc
Membrana, Sigillo nostri Collegii rata et Chirographis nostris munita,
Testimonio sit.
 Datum Aulæ Nassovicæ, Pridie Calendas Octobris Anno
MDCCLXXXIX.

Joannes Witherspoon, Præses. Joannes Rodgers, Joannes

Bayard, Joannes Woodhull, Guls. Paterson, Isaacus Snowden,
Jacobus Boyd, Joannes Beatty, Guliel. M. Tennent, Andreas Hunter,
Curatores.

An English Obituary Notice of Dr. Rittenhouse: Extracted from the

European Magazine, for July, 1796.

In the sixty-fourth year of his age, died David Rittenhouse, The

American Philosopher. His history is curious, from the admiration in
which his character was held.

Rittenhouse was a native of America; and, in the early part of his

life, he mingled the pursuits of science with the active employments
of a farmer and watch-maker.[A50] In 1769, he was invited by the
American Philosophical Society to join a number of gentlemen who
were then occupied in making some astronomical observations,
when he particularly distinguished himself by the accuracy of his
calculations and the comprehension of his mind. He afterwards
constructed an observatory,[A51] which he superintended in person,
and which was the source of many important discoveries, as well as
greatly tending to the diffusion of knowledge in the western world.
During the American war, he was an active assertor of the cause of
independence. Since the establishment of the peace, he
successively filled the offices of Treasurer of the State of
Pennsylvania and Director of the National Mint; in both of which
capacities, he was alike distinguished for strength of judgment and
integrity of heart. He succeeded the illustrious Franklin in the office
of President of the Philosophical Society; a situation which the bent
of his mind and the course of his studies had rendered him eminently
qualified to fill: and towards the close of his days, he retired from
public life to the enjoyment of domestic happiness; when he formed
a circle of private friends, who will continue to admire his Virtues as a
Man, while the world will applaud his Talents as a Philosopher.

Letter from the Rev. Mr. Cathcart, to the Writer of these Memoirs.

York, 13th. Nov, 1812.

Dear Sir,

The following is a statement of the conversation which took place

between Drs. Sproat and Rittenhouse, mentioned by me to Bishop
White.

At a time when Dr. Rittenhouse was confined by sickness to his

room, or perhaps to his bed,[A52] he sent for the Rev. Dr. Sproat to
visit him. The Doctor was somewhat surprised, on receiving the
message: but as he had made it an uniform rule to visit all who sent
for him, he expressed his surprise at being sent for; observing, that
he could offer no comfort or consolation to any person, who was not
a Believer in the Christian Religion. On hearing this declaration, Dr.
Rittenhouse immediately asked, if Dr. Sproat considered him among
the number of such? To which the Doctor answered; that the world
had generally classed him with them. Dr. Rittenhouse on hearing
this, with great mildness and a smile on his countenance, replied,
that the opinion of the world was sometimes wrong; and, as it
respected himself, he could with truth declare, that ever since he had
examined Christianity and thought upon the subject, he was a firm
believer in it; and, that he expected salvation only in the way and
manner, as proposed in the Gospel.

The above is the substance of what Dr. Sproat mentioned to

myself; and I might add, that when the good old man told it, his eyes
overflowed with tears of joy. It gives me pleasure to be able to
furnish you with this satisfactory proof of Dr. Rittenhouse’s faith; and
which I once introduced into a sermon preached in the city, as justice
due to the character of the deceased, and who had been
triumphantly claimed by the Infidels. I am happy to find that you are
engaged in the laudable business of writing the Life of that worthy
Man. Yours, respectfully,

Robert Cathcart.

William Barton, Esquire.

Character of Dr. Rittenhouse:

Communicated to the Author of the Memoirs of his Life, in a letter

from Andrew Ellicott, Esq.
Lancaster, December 30th, 1812.

Dear Sir,

I felt no small degree of pleasure and satisfaction, on

understanding that you are about publishing Memoirs of the Life of
Dr. Rittenhouse; knowing, from your connexion, and intimacy with
him for many years, you have it in your power to delineate, and
transmit his true character and a knowledge of his rare virtues to
posterity, with as much, if not more accuracy than any other person.
As I also have had the pleasure and advantage of Dr. Rittenhouse’s
acquaintance and friendship, I request you to accept of the following
short sketch of his character, as a small testimony of my esteem for
him when living, and of my veneration for his memory, now he is no
more. I am, dear Sir, your sincere friend,

Andrew Ellicott.

William Barton, Esq.

I became acquainted with the late Dr. Rittenhouse, in the sixteenth

year of my age, being first introduced to him, after he removed to the
city of Philadelphia, by the late Joseph Galloway, Esq. and my
Father; both of whom were sincerely attached to him, not only on
account of his scientific talents and acquirements, but for his public
and private virtues. From that period, to the end of his life, we
enjoyed an uninterrupted friendship.

In my scientific pursuits, I was frequently aided by him; particularly,

in that part which relates to Astronomy, with which he was better
acquainted, both in theory and practice, than any other person in this
country; and when he ceased to calculate the Almanacks for the
middle states, at his request I continued them several years.

In the years 1784 and 1785, Dr. Rittenhouse and myself were
engaged in determining the boundaries between this commonwealth
and the state of Virginia; and in the year 1786, in determining the
boundary between this commonwealth and the state of New-York. In
those arduous employments, I had many opportunities of witnessing
his address in overcoming the numerous difficulties we necessarily
had to encounter, in the then wilderness, in which our operations
were performed.

As a gentleman of general science, Dr. Rittenhouse would have

held a respectable rank in any country; but as a Mechanist and
Astronomer, he has had but few equals. It has been frequently
asked,—why he has not left more evidences of his talents, for the
use of posterity? In answer to this question, it is to be observed, that
almost from his childhood, he had a complaint in his breast; which
increased so much with his age, that for the last fifteen years of his
life,—and in which he had the most leisure for composition,—it was
painful for him to support the position a person must occupy, when
writing. This circumstance I have frequently heard him lament, in a
feeling manner; as it prevented him from answering letters with
promptitude, and writing to his friends as often as he wished.

Though Dr. Rittenhouse had not the advantage of a liberal

education, he wrote not only correctly but with ease: he made
himself master of the German language, to which he was partial: and
of the French, so far as to read the scientific works in that tongue,
with facility.
 As an Husband, and a Father, he might be taken as an example
and a pattern, in the most virtuous community that ever existed. He
was a good Citizen,—and warm and sincere in his friendships; and
though reserved in large mixed companies, he was cheerful and
communicative, when in a small circle of his friends. His mind
appeared formed for contemplation, and therefore not calculated for
the noisy and busy scenes of this world: from this placid turn of mind,
he had a singular antipathy to all mobs and riots; and I recollect to
have heard him speak of the riots of the Paxton-boys, (as they were
called,) with greater acrimony than on any other occasion,—more
than twenty years after they happened. Being a philanthropist by
nature, he wished the happiness and welfare of the whole human
race; and viewed slavery, in all its forms, with feelings of horrour:
from this attachment to the happiness, the rights, and the liberty of
his fellow-creatures, he was led to take an active and useful part in
favour of our revolution, which separated the colonies (now the
United States,) from the mother-country.

His contemplative mind naturally carried him to piety; but his

liberality was so great, that he did not appear to give a very decided
preference to any one of the sects into which Christianity is divided:
he practised the morality of a sincere Christian, without troubling
himself about the dogmas of the different churches.

His manners were plain and unassuming, though not without a

sufficient share of dignity; and, from a consciousness of his own
talents, he did not envy those of others.

It has too frequently happened, for the honour of science and

literature, that men of great and commanding talents, have been
obstinately dogmatical, and impatient of contradiction;—of those
blemishes, Dr. Rittenhouse had not the least tincture.

To conclude,—if Dr. Rittenhouse was not the greatest man, of the

age, his character has fewer blemishes in it; and, if his talents were
not of that kind which are usually considered the most brilliant, they
were—like those of Washington—of the most solid and useful
order.
Some particulars concerning the Residence, the Tomb, &c. of
Copernicus: communicated to the late Dr. Rittenhouse, Pres. A. P.
S. by the Earl of Buchan.

“In the year 1777,” says his Lordship, “my learned friend John
Bernouilli, of Berlin, on one of his tours having happened to meet
with the Bishop of Warmia,[A53] in the Abbey of Oliva, near Dantzic,
was informed by that prelate, that he had the pleasure to discover, in
the Cathedral of Frauenburg, the Tomb of Copernicus, so long
fruitlessly sought for.

“In the year 1778, Mr. Bernouilli having occasion to pass through
Frauenburg, on his road to St. Petersburg, did not fail to visit the
Cathedral, and explore the Monument of Copernicus. Acquainted
with no one in the place, he was yet lucky enough to meet with a
Canon, in the street, whose countenance invited him to accost him
on this subject, and who proved very attentive to his researches. He
informed him, that as for the Ashes of Copernicus, they were
mingled in the charnel-house with the bones of the fraternity of the
Canons; but that, for the Tombstone of the Philosopher, it was no
more than a tablet of marble, simple, as the mode was of his days,
and had no other inscription than these words—Nic. Copernicus,
Thor:—-That this tablet had remained hidden for some time, in
rubbish; and when recovered, was placed in the chapter-house, till a
more suitable place should be destined for it. Mr. Bernouilli
expresses his regret to me, that he had not urged the Canon to
indulge him with a sight of this Stone; and to look for a further
inscription, to support the assertion of Gassendi, who mentions
(page 325), That the Bishop Martin Cromer, an eminent Polish
historian, caused a mural marble monument to be inscribed and
erected to the memory of Copernicus, with the following inscription:
 D. O. M.
R. D. NICOLAO COPERNICO,
Torunensi, Artium et
Medicinæ Doctori,
Canonico Warmiensi,
Præsenti Astrologo, et
Ejus Disciplinæ
Instauratori;
Martinus Cromerus,
Episcopus Warmiensis,
Honoris, et ad Posteritatem
Memoriæ, Causâ, posuit;
M. D. L. X. X. X. I.

“Gassendi adds, that this Monument was not erected until thirty-six
years after the death of Copernicus, which does not agree with this
date of 1581.

“The good Canon informed Bernouilli, that he was lodged in the

apartment of Copernicus, of which he was very proud; and invited
the Prussian Philosopher to visit him in that place, which he
accordingly did; and was shewn by the Canon another place, above
the Dormitories, which had been used by Copernicus as his study
and observatory, in which the Canon had a portrait of that eminent
man, concerning the original of which he would not say. This little
Observatory had an extensive view; but when Copernicus had
occasion for one more extensive, he was wont to observe on the
gallery of the steeple, which communicates with this place.

“Charmed with these classic footsteps, Bernouilli forgot to look at

the Monument on the chapter-house, above mentioned. In a
repository adjoining to the Cathedral, the Canon shewed Bernouilli
the remains of a hydraulic machine said to have been invented and
used by Copernicus. The construction seemed interesting, but in
great disrepair; and Bernouilli had not leisure to examine it
particularly. The use of the machine was to force and convey water
into the most elevated apartments of the house of the Canons, who
are now under the necessity of having it fetched from a distance,
from the lower Town.”

“I remember to have seen (says Bernouilli), in some old German

Journal, that the Library of the ancient town of Konigsberg contained
some books, chiefly mathematical, which were part of the Library of
Copernicus; and also his Portrait, which had been purchased at
Thorn, where the remains of his family still possessed the house in
which he was born, as late as the year 1720. In P. Freher’s Theatrum
Virorum eruditorum, there is a Chronostick on the year of
Copernicus’s death, 1543. p. 1447.

eX hoC eXCessIt trIstI CopernICVs eVo,

IngenIo astronVM et CognItIone potens.

“In the above mentioned book, p. 1442, there is a neat little Print of
Copernicus. In Hartknoch’s Alter und newes Preusen, here is a print
of Copernicus, from a picture on wood which hangs in what they call
his Cenotaph, at Thorn; and which represents him kneeling, in his
canonicals, before a Crucifix;—and below this portrait are these
sapphic verses:

Non parem Pauli gratiam requiro,

Veniam Petri neque posco; sed quam
In Crucis ligno dederas sationi,
Sedulus oro.

(a little lower)

Nicolao Copernico, Thoruniensi, absolutæ subtilitatis

mathematico, ne tanti viri apud exteros celeb. in sua patria periret
memoria, hoc monumentum positum.

Mort. Varmiæ, in suo Canonicatu, Anno 1543—

die 4 + ætatis LXXIII.
(lastly, lowest.)
Nicolaus Copernicus, Thoruniensis, Mathematicus celeberrimus.
 “This Monument of Copernicus was erected by Melchior
Pyrnesius, M. D., who died in 1589.

“On the same altar-piece, or picture, is represented the portrait of

John D’Albert, with the following inscription.

Illustris Princeps Dn. Joh. Albertus, Polo. Rex, apoplexiâ hic

Thoru. mortuus, Anno 1501, die 17 Maii, ætat. 41; cujus viscera hic
sepulta, Corpore Craco translato; Reg. Ann. VIII.

“Upon the whole,” concludes Lord Buchan, “it appears the likeness
I send, of Copernicus, is most to be depended on; and, as such, I
flatter myself it will be an Heir-loom to infant America! Concerning
Napier, it is needless for me to enlarge; the learned Dr. Minto having
enabled me to do justice to his memory.”

Although the following particulars respecting Dr. Rittenhouse were

not communicated by the writer, Professor Barton, until it was too
late to give them a place in the body of the work, the Author
nevertheless is glad to have an opportunity of presenting to the
public, even at the close of his book, the interesting circumstances
this communication contains.

As Optics were one of his favourite studies, so he at one time

contemplated a course of public, and I think popular, lectures on this
beautiful and important branch of physics. On this subject he
mentioned to me his intention in the winter of 1785-1786. The
enthusiasm, indeed, with which he developed his design, and I may
add the warmth of zeal with which his manner at the time inspired
me, I can never forget. And, indeed, I cannot but regret, that our
excellent friend never made his appearance in publick, as a
LECTURER. As such, he would, unquestionably, have greatly
advanced the love and the knowledge of natural philosophy in the
United-States. He may, perhaps, have wanted some of the