Three Russian Tales of the Eighteenth Century: The Comely Cook, Vanka Kain, and "Poor Liza"

Vanka Kain

The True and Detailed Account of The Good and Wicked Deeds of The Russian Rogue, Thief, Robber, and Former Moscow Police Spy Vanka Kain, And of His Entire Life and Strange Adventures Written By M. K. Title page of the first printing (1779) of Vanka Kain p r e Fa c e dear readers! in offering you Kain’s history, i consider it my duty to make public the reason that prompted me to write this work. it is well known to many, i would say, that the reading of books, which enlightens the mind, has become a common occurrence in our country, and that time which was darkened by the shadow of ignorance , in which those who read the writings of aristotle and various other books were anathematized, has already passed. nowadays, not fearing the anger of an empty, ancient anathema, our good citizens, and not only the nobility but even people of the middle and lower stations and especially the merchant class, are most willingly practiced in the reading of all manner of books. being not infrequently in contact with such people, i have heard that some of the young people among them who have read the life of the French thief cartouche, which has been translated from German,1 were astonished by his roguish deeds, adding that in russia there have been neither villains similar to him nor other adventures worthy of curious note. That this opinion is unjust is known well enough by those reasonable persons who are familiar with the affairs of their country, and furthermore, as proof, the following can be said: whereas according to geographic calculation the vastness of russia surpasses all other european states joined together, it cannot be the case that in such an expansive empire there has not been the very same type of adventures which occur in other countries that are the smallest fraction compared to her, for nature brings all people into the world equally, russians as well as the French, Germans, and others , and therefore a number of virtuous and depraved people are to be found in any nation. in our native land there have also been remarkable occurrences in nature and great deeds and many changes worthy of notice in society: there were and still are wise town governors, great heroes, and fearless commanders; many people have experienced the types of adventures worthy of occupying a place in histories; and there were and yet are infamous rogues, thieves, and robbers. what we have too few of, however , are industrious writers, for had we at present as many writers of history as there are poets and writers of comedies, and if certain people kept a diary of their life, then without fail, in due course no small quantity of books worthy of our curiosity would appear in society, and with even greater pleasure our descendants would read in them about the deeds of their ancestors rather than the acts of foreign peoples. For this reason, as long ago as 1773 i had the intention of undertaking an account of the deeds of the notorious rogue Kain, about which i had heard directly from him. in 1755 i was attending to business in the department of criminal investigations,2 where he was being held while a commission was convened concerning his criminal activity and where he recounted all his adventures to the nobleman Fyodor Fomich levshin, who at that time was in that very department.* no matter how sharp human memory may be, however, after eighteen years it is quite impossible to recollect everything clearly, and therefore i resolved to leave off this undertaking, but in 1774 i by chance came across a brief record of the deeds of this rogue. unfortunately, it was written in the type of style the lower classes commonly employ to tell fairy tales or whatever manner of adventures, and, in addition, great mistakes had been made by the copyists because some things were so confused with others that it was barely possible to make them out.3 From the content of this record, however, it was necessary to think that the original was written either by Kain himself or by some other person from his words. Moreover, on several occasions i had * by the grace of the secretary, Kain was not held in the department of criminal investigations like other prisoners, who were never allowed out of prison, but with...