Alexander Sergeevich Buturlin (Александр Сергеевич Бутурлин) was a physician and an old acquaintance. He appears in the record of The Great Sin once, in the diary entry that also notes the start of its writing.
The visit of 20 April 1905
On 20 April 1905 Buturlin went with Tolstoy to the peasant Pyotr Osipov (Пётр Осипов). The diary for 21 April records it: “Yesterday, with Buturlin, I was at Pyotr Osipov’s, and he harshly reproached me for the fact that I speak [against it] yet buy up land. It was both painful and good.”1 The same entry begins “Began writing: The People’s Defenders. Not bad. And Henry George”, the two pieces that became the essay.2
Buturlin was the companion on the visit, not the one who reproached. The dive links the reproach to the essay’s close, which speaks in the first person: “we, Russian parasites, nourished and given leisure for mental work by the labours of the people, shall understand our sin”.3
Open questions
- His biography entirely: dates, career, and how the acquaintance stood.
- “Physician” and “old acquaintance” come from the dive’s dossier; the diary names him only as Buturlin, and the PSS 55 note on him is not among the dive’s extracts.
- Whether he recurs elsewhere in the 1905 record around this essay.
Dive provenance
- 1905-the-great-sin (2026-06-30) — Buturlin as the companion on the 20 April 1905 visit to Osipov (E23). Routed to a page of his own in the entity steer, 2026-08-12; converted to the footnote style 2026-10-02.
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«Вчера с Бутурлиным был у Петра Осипова, и он жестко упрекал меня за то, что я говорю, а скупаю землю. Было и больно и хорошо» (Diary, 21 April 1905; PSS 55:135–137). English: ours. ↩
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«Начал писать: Народные Заступники. Недурно. И Генри Джоржа» (PSS 55:135–137). English: ours. ↩
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«мы, русские паразиты, вскормленные и получившие досуг для умственной работы трудами народа, поймем наш грех» (PSS 36:230). English: ours. ↩