Very rare: the first Russian edition of “the most important biological book ever written” (Freeman). It was translated into Russian by Sergei Aleksandrovich Rachinskii, professor of botany at Moscow University. Unusually for the time, the work appeared without any annotations or explanatory notes by Rachinskii, which was commented on in contemporary reviews of the translation. Instead, he has included Darwin’s introduction to the 1860 first American edition.
“Although not a masterwork of translation, the book sold out so quickly that in 1865 it went through a second printing. By this time Darwin’s ideas had reached not only scientists and popularizers but also persons eager to integrate evolutionary thought into ideologically oriented writings. M.A. Antonovich in Contemporary greeted Darwin primarily as a master of scientific thought destined to cause drastic changes in the world outlook of the new generation. He viewed the Origin as a major victory for the democratic spirit of the scientific method over the authoritarian sway of metaphysical speculation. He left no doubt about his firm belief in the close interdependence of science and democracy. The strengths of the Origin, as he saw them, were not only in the emphasis on the natural causation of organic evolution but also in the lucidity of its prose and the power of empirical documentation on which it rested. In Darwin’s evolutionary idea and the current triumph of the experimental method in physiology he saw the beginning of a new phase in the growth of biology” (Vucinich).
A work such as Origin was bound to excite mixed reviews which was also the case in Russia. However, for “the great majority Darwin became a highly prestigious figure - the embodiment of modern natural science. As A.O. Kovalevskii recalled in 1909: Darwin’s theory was received in Russia with profound sympathy. While in Western Europe it met firmly established old traditions which it had first to overcome, in Russia its appearance coincided with the awakening of our society after the Crimean War and here it immediately received the status of full citizenship and ever since has enjoyed widespread popularity” (Todes).
The translation appeared at a famously tense time in Russia. The emancipation of the serfs had occurred in 1861, which set off a wave of political reform and revolutionary activity that would culminate in the Revolution of 1917. While it was of obvious importance to the scientific community, there were (inevitably) political ramifications too.
James Allen Rogers explains how Darwin’s theories were quickly co-opted by, for example, the nihilists. “This nihilist doctrine that human progress depended only on an understanding and diffusion of the teachings of the natural sciences met a strong challenge in 1864 with the appearance of Charles Darwin’s The origin of species in a Russian translation. The leading nihilist, Dmitrii Pisarev, enthusiastically praised Darwin’s book in a long review. He strongly emphasized that the core of Darwinian natural selection was a literal interpretation of the idea of the struggle for existence which Darwin had borrowed from Thomas Malthus. Pisarev overlooked Darwin’s own insistence that natural selection was far more complex than the idea of the struggle for existence which Darwin had used only in a metaphorical sense. Pisarev interpreted Darwinism to mean that is the struggle for existence in nature or human society only the ‘fittest’ survive. He saw the contemporary European in his historical struggles with less developed peoples as a manifestation of this superiority.”
Rachinskii’s translation was reprinted several times until 1895 when Kliment A. Timiriazev’s was published and became the standard.
OCLC locates 2 copies, both in Toronto. Equally, just two copies have appeared at auction in the past forty years, both in 2017. This copy is in significantly better condition than either.
Todes, Daniel P., Darwin without Malthus, p.23; Rogers, James Allen, “Proudhon and the Transformation of Russian ‘Nihilism’” in Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique. Oct-Dec., 1972., Vol. 13, no. 4, pp.515-516; Vucinich, Alexander, Darwin in Russian Thought, p.19. Freeman, 387; cf for the first English edition Freeman 373, Dibner, 199; Garison-Morton, 220; Horblit, 23b; Norman, 593; PMM 344b.