---
id: giuseppe-mazzini
recordStatus: draft
liveStatus: new
type: person
title: Giuseppe Mazzini
titleEn: Giuseppe Mazzini
titleRu: Джузеппе Мадзини
nameAlternatives:
  - name: "Иосиф Мадзини"
    type: variant
    language: ru
  - name: "Иосифа Мадзини"
    type: variant
    language: ru
description: "Italian revolutionary and writer, quoted at the opening of chapter VIII of The Great Sin (1905)."
birthDate: ""
birthDateOldStyle: ""
birthDateApproximate: false
deathDate: ""
deathDateOldStyle: ""
deathDateApproximate: false
birthPlace: ""
deathPlace: ""
causeOfDeath: ""
nationality: Italian
religion: ""
politicalViews: ""
roles: []
occupation:
  - revolutionary
  - writer
relationToTolstoy: ""
relationshipDescription: "No personal contact. Quoted in The Great Sin (1905) from a Russian anthology of his thoughts."
periodOfContact:
  from: ""
  to: ""
  notes: "No personal contact. The engagement is with Mazzini's words, read in Russian."
authorityTier: 3
synopsis: ""
worksAuthored: []
worksTranslated: []
worksEdited: []
worksTranscribed: []
relatedWorks:
  -
    id: the-great-sin
    role: source
relatedArticles:
  - leo-tolstoy
themes:
  - religion as the ground of social change
identifiers:
  wikidata: ""
  viaf: ""
  lccn: ""
  bnf: ""
fieldSources: {}
---

<!-- NEEDS PRIMARY SOURCE: life dates (routed as 1805–1872), birthplace and identifiers; they need an authority file, not a dive. -->

Giuseppe Mazzini (<span lang="ru">Джузеппе Мадзини</span>) was an Italian revolutionary and writer. [[The Great Sin]] (1905) quotes him once, at the opening of chapter VIII.

The line reads: “Great social transformations,” says Mazzini, “always have been and will be only the consequence of great religious movements.”[^1]

## What the religious movement is

The paragraphs that follow say what the movement is. It "consists in loosing that great sin which has long tormented and divided men not in Russia alone, but in the whole world".[^2] The sin can be loosed "neither by political reforms, nor by socialist projects in the future, nor by revolutions in the present, and still less by philanthropic donations or by governmental institutions for the purchase and distribution of lands to the peasants".[^3] What is needed is "only the consciousness of their sin by all the men who commit it or take part in it, and the desire to be rid of it".[^4]

## The source

The PSS commentary calls the line a paraphrased and shortened quotation from a Posrednik pamphlet, *Selected Thoughts of Joseph Mazzini*, compiled by L. P. Nikiforov (Moscow, 1905), p. 5, thought 4.[^5] The wording, "only" included, is therefore Tolstoy's own rendering.

The 1905 English translation, *A Great Iniquity*, leaves out "only": "always have been and will be the result of great religious movements".[^6]

## Open questions

- Life dates, birthplace and identifiers need an authority file.
- The anthology's own wording of thought 4, to set beside the paraphrase.
- Whether the writings of these years (*A Circle of Reading*, the essays of 1904–08) quote Mazzini or other political figures more often than before, and how their words are handled. A question for a dive.

## Dive provenance

- [1905-the-great-sin](../works/non-fiction/essays-and-criticism/1905-the-great-sin/index.md) (2026-06-30) — the chapter VIII epigraph (E11) and the PSS commentary on its source. Routed to a page of his own in the entity steer, 2026-08-12; revised from Johan's notes on 2026-10-02 (the dive's `annotations.md`).

[^1]: <span lang="ru">«Великие общественные преобразования, — говорит Мадзини, — всегда были и будут лишь следствием великих религиозных движений».</span> (PSS 36:226, ch. VIII). English: ours.

[^2]: <span lang="ru">«Религиозное движение, предстоящее теперь русскому народу, состоит в том, чтобы развязать тот великий грех, который давно уже мучает и разделяет людей не в одной России, но во всем мире»</span> (PSS 36:226). English: ours.

[^3]: <span lang="ru">«Развязать же этот грех могут не политические реформы, не социалистические проекты в будущем, не революции в настоящем, ни еще менее филантропические пожертвования или правительственные учреждения для покупки и раздачи земель крестьянам»</span> (PSS 36:226). English: ours.

[^4]: <span lang="ru">«нужно только сознание своего греха всеми людьми, совершающими его или участвующими в нем, и желание избавления от него»</span> (PSS 36:226). English: ours.

[^5]: <span lang="ru">«Перефразированная и сокращенная цитата»</span>; the title <span lang="ru">«Избранные мысли Иосифа Мадзини»</span> (PSS 36, commentary).

[^6]: *A Great Iniquity*, tr. V. Chertkov and I. F. Mayo (1905), ch. VIII.