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# In what dread expanse I behold the Slave apart from Man, One, like the sun in a clear sky, the Other as gloomy as the earth
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/v-kakom-prostranstve-zriu-uzhasnom-raba-ot-cheloveka-ia-odin-kak-solntse-v-nebe-iasnom-drugoi-tak-mrachen-kak-zemlia/
- Published: 2024-04-13T09:06:40.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T09:21:12.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Books, Society, Saint Petersburg

In what dread expanse I behold  
The Slave apart from Man,  
One, like the sun in a clear sky,  
The Other as gloomy as the earth.  
One is everything, the other a nullity,  
If only he had known his slavish duty,  
Had questioned nature; had examined  
Who is to blame for all his misfortunes?  
Then with that very same hand  
He would have torn off the chains he himself had put on.

*Literal translation*

An excerpt from the poem "Man", 1805, by Ivan Petrovich Pnin (1773–1805)

Illustration: The file on the submission of the Saint Petersburg Censorship Committee to the Trustee of the Saint Petersburg Educational District, Count Stroganov, on the prohibition of Ivan Petrovich Pnin's work "An Essay on Enlightenment with Respect to Russia" as conducive to the "inflaming of minds"