# Entity steer — A Confession (1879–82)

Which people, places and ideas this dive fed into the shared entity layer (`docs/research/wiki/`), and the one-line gist of what each got. The substance lives on the entity pages themselves; this is only the "who contributed what" trail. Routing source: Johan's reader annotations (`annotations.md`, "Wiki links and explanations wanted").

## First batch — from the reader annotations (2026-10-02)

| Entity | Page | What this dive fed |
|---|---|---|
| [[Execution in Paris (1857)]] | `wiki/Execution in Paris (1857).md` — event | The ch. III passage; the diary for 25 March (6 April) 1857 as quoted in the PSS commentary; the margin plan-note «В это время гильотина…»; first appearance in the first author's proof; the draft's different conclusion. |
| [[Samara]] | `wiki/Samara.md` — place | The 1862 kumys stay (commentary note 19); the Samara estate and the 6000-desyatina question (ch. III); the Molokans of Samara in a draft of ch. XV. |
| [[Experimental and speculative knowledge]] | `wiki/Experimental and speculative knowledge.md` — concept | The two rows of knowledge (ch. V), the half-sciences incl. «науки юридические» (Johan's "jurisprudence" note), the Kazan law faculty, the draft's forest image. |

## Glosses, not pages

- **«всё, что существует, то разумно»** — our note 3 in the Maude reader text (Hegel, marked as ours; the PSS commentary names no source).
- **desyatina** — Maude's own footnote covers it.
- ***What Is Art?*** — a link to the existing works record, not a new page.
- **heart / soul / conscience** — a possible theme dive, not a page.

## Second batch — from the dossier's entities (2026-10-02)

Eleven of the fifteen. Each page draws only on this dive's extracts, `dossier.yaml` and `index.md`; every «…» was checked word for word against them. English in the pages is ours throughout (the letters have no published translation in the dive).

| Entity | Page | What this dive fed |
|---|---|---|
| [[Nikolai Strakhov]] | person | The letters of 1877–81 that date the writing (PSS 62, 63); the commentary's undated joint trip to Optina; the Descartes passage of ch. IX in his translation; his 1883 line "printed in Russkaya Mysl and burned". |
| [[Alexandrine Tolstaya]] | person | Her letters of 1879–80; the unsent letter of 3 March 1882 (PSS 63:90–91); her memoirs as cited in the commentary. Kept apart from the daughter's page `Alexandra Tolstaya.md`. |
| [[Afanasy Fet]] | person | The letter of 22 November 1879 (PSS 62:503–504) the commentary uses for dating; three commentary notes (Turgenev 1861, Nikolai's death 1860, Fet's Schopenhauer). |
| [[Nikolai Fyodorov]] | person | Diary, 5 October 1881 (PSS 49:58); letter to Alekseev, November 1881; the Rumyantsev Library, folded in here. |
| [[Vasily Sutaev]] | person | Diary, 5 October 1881 (Torzhok); the Alekseev and Engelhardt letters. |
| [[Vasily Alekseev]] | person | The letter of November 1881 (PSS 63:80–83); later letters only from the letter sweep. |
| [[Mikhail Engelhardt]] | person | The long letter of December 1882 – January 1883 (PSS 63:112–128). |
| [[Mikhail Elpidin]] | person | The Geneva edition of 1884, where the title «Исповедь» first appears; printed from the second-to-last proof, so without the censor's softenings. |
| [[Russkaya Mysl]] | institution | The May 1882 typesetting, the cutting and destruction; its editor S. A. Yuryev folded in. |
| [[Holy Synod]] | institution | The 1882 ban by the Moscow spiritual censorship; the Synod's own refusal of 5 July 1886; Pobedonostsev folded in, thinly; the 1901 edict names no works. |
| [[Optina Pustyn]] | place | The aunts and Aleksandra Ilyinichna's death there in Draft No. 23; the 1881 trip reported to Strakhov. |

Links added in the reader: the overview (Elpidin, *Russkaya Mysl*) and Maude's note 8 (Fet). The text of A Confession names none of the eleven.

**No page yet:** Yuryev (in Russkaya Mysl), Pobedonostsev (in Holy Synod), the Rumyantsev Museum (in Fyodorov), Urusov (only two commentary mentions). Turgenev is in the dossier but was not in this batch.

### Where the dive's own notes disagree with its sources

Found while writing the pages; the pages follow the sources. `dossier.yaml` and `index.md` corrected the same day.

- **Optina 1881 without Strakhov.** The dossier says Strakhov went to Optina with Tolstoy in 1881. The letter of 1–8 July 1881 tells Strakhov of that trip as news; the commentary's joint trip is undated and sits with the late 1870s.
- **Geneva is in the PSS for 1884.** The dossier and `index.md` say the commentary gives Женева only for 1889; it says «впервые напечатана М. К. Элпидиным в Женеве в 1884 г.».
- **Sutaev did not read the gospel synthesis.** `index.md` and conf-let-06 list him as a reader beside Fedorov and Orlov; the letter names only Orlov and Fedorov.
- **"Strakhov the first reader", "Fet the pessimist foil", "Sutaev named in the text"** — not shown by any extract.