The Russian novelist, critic and journalist Aleksandr Valentinovič Amfiteatrov (1862-1938) was undoubtedly one of the most prolific Russian authors of the 20th century. This was probably due to the fact that he had to earn a living as a political refugee outside Russia, where the number of potential readers was rather restricted. Moreover, the changing political preferences of this public before and after the Russian revolution can (partly) explain why Amfiteatrov shifted his convictions from extreme leftist before the revolution to extreme rightist (and fascist) after 1917. So Amfiteatrov's engagement in the Bratstvo Russkoj Pravdy (BRP, Brotherhood of the Russian Truth), a would-be terrorist organisation that pretended to fight the Bolsheviks by their own means (i.e. terror) did not come as a surprise. As from 1927 Amfiteatrov became one of the BRP's spokesmen, urging Russian émigrés to make financial and physical efforts to its cause. His own contribution was Stena plača i stena nerušimaja, a long lamentation on the inertia of the Russian emigration, which was first published in Belgrade in 1930. The revenue of the second, revised edition Amfiteatrov ceded to the BRP. This contribution deals with the history of this second edition, based on the correspondence between Amfiteatrov and his obscure Brussels publisher 'Izjumec'.

Dr. Wim Coudenys
Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
wim.coudenys@arts.kuleuven.ac.be