Run-report — `1882-1884-what-i-believe`

Work-dive on Tolstoy’s What I Believe (В чём моя вера?), the doctrinal sequel to A Confession and third panel of the Prophet-period project. Run 2026-06-06, in-session unattended (the A-Confession-pilot model), interactive scope confirmation, medium visual intensity.

Scope contract (Phase 0)

• Subject (work dive): What I Believe (В чём моя вера? / My Religion). Slug 1882-1884-what-i-believe — year-prefixed, slots after 1879-1882-a-confession.
• Corpus surface: PSS Tom 23 — work text pp. 304–465 (v23_304_465_V_chem_moja_vera.xml); plans & variants p. 512; commentary (V. F. Savodnik) pp. 548–560. Composition-window diaries Tom 49 (1883; 190 entries — no 1884 diaries in the corpus); letters Tom 63 (1882–84). Echo: О верах (Tom 26, 1886). Composition window 1882–1884 (writing concentrated 1883 → finished Jan 1884).
• Works record: missing — the dive is the source-grounded basis to create it.
• Mode: in-session unattended; no AskUserQuestion gating; judgment calls → needsReview; note draft: true; medium visual intensity.

What was covered

• Deep read of all 12 chapters; keystone passages extracted byte-faithful (the «не противься злу» key, the five commandments, courts/oaths/state, the «Я верю…» credo, the «малое стадо» close).
• Genesis doubly grounded: the late-1882 Engelhardt letter (five commandments stated outright, «смыкающее звено») + Chertkov’s 9 Mar 1883 diary catalyst; the 1883 composition strain.
• Ban history from Tolstoy’s own letters (Buturlin, Ge «период распинания», Pypin) + the PSS censorship chain (Fyodorov → Bogolyubsky → Feoktistov, art. 239; seizure 18 Feb 1884; dispersal).
• Redaction / title history, translation lineage (French Ma religion 1885 first; German; English; Geneva/Elpidine Russian; legal Russia 1906).
• Reception (church-refutation literature; John of Kronstadt; the cautious 1901-edict reading) and scholarship triangulation (5 entries; Medzhibovskaya/Gustafson continuity vs Simmons/Wilson break; Christoyannopoulos on the label; Wilson’s “counsel of craziness” flagged and answered).
• Visuals: 11 PD images cached (keystone = Ge’s 1884 Tolstoy-writing portrait; the 1885 French/English title pages; the circle).

Coverage ledger

Entity work-order (ingestion priority → dependency)

Priority 1 (central; write first): Non-resistance to evil (concept); The five commandments (concept, after non-resistance); M. A. Engelhardt (person); V. G. Chertkov (EXISTS — add the genesis-catalyst role). Leo Tolstoy EXISTS. Priority 2: Christian anarchism (EXISTS — link, don’t duplicate); S. A. Minor (rabbi); I. S. Aksakov; V. K. Sutaev (+ son I. V.); N. N. Ge; the cousin A. A. Tolstaya (MISSING — distinct from the daughter’s existing page); L. D. Urusov; N. N. Strakhov; K. P. Pobedonostsev; M. K. Elpidine; Holy Synod, Russkaya Mysl (institutions); S. A. Tolstaya EXISTS. Priority 3: A. M. Kuzminsky; N. V. Davydov; E. M. Feoktistov; A. S. Buturlin; A. N. Pypin; Yasnaya Polyana EXISTS.

Visuals work-order

Cached (PD, usable): Ge 1884 Tolstoy-writing (keystone); Tolstoy photos 1880–86 & 1885; Ma religion 1885 (FR); What I Believe 1885 (EN, Stock) & My Religion 1885 (EN, Crowell); Chertkov (Kramskoy 1881); Strakhov 1885; cousin A. A. Tolstaya 1860s; Ge self-portrait 1892. To acquire (request from holdings): the 1884 Moscow first printing (ГМТ holds a photocopy); the Geneva/Elpidine first Russian edition (try BGE / vtoraya-literatura / Hoover); a manuscript facsimile (ОР РГБ / ГМТ).

Work-record work-order (proposed fills for a NEW record)

High confidence: titleRu «В чём моя вера?»; titleEn “What I Believe” (alt “My Religion”); dateWritingCompleted 1884-01-22 (OS colophon); dateFirstPublishedInRussia 1906; publishedDuringLifetime / publishedInRussiaDuringLifetime = true; bans[] (schema-clean: authorityType imperial-state, scope complete-ban, banDate 1884-02-26 NS / 1884-02-14 OS); samizdatCirculation true; jubileeEdition.volumes 23. Medium/low: dateWritingStarted ~1883 (approximate); genre essay (mirror Confession); dateFirstPublished (which event — see needsReview); excommunicationRelated false (see needsReview); titleAlternatives (FR/DE/EN). Folder (treatises vs personal-papers) → human decision.

needsReview (deferred human judgment)

1. excommunicationRelated value (proposed false — 1901 edict names no works).
2. dateFirstPublished — which event the field carries (suppressed 1884 Moscow vs French 1885 vs full Russian Geneva/Elpidine).
3. New record folder (treatises vs personal-papers).
4. Parsing of the «Маракуев / архимандрит Амфилохий» censorship aside in S. A. Tolstaya’s 29 Jan 1884 letter.

Verification

• verify_quotes.py → 24/24 verbatim PASS (pre-reform forms «Воть»/«естетики»/«диаволом»/«чтò» and a Latin-a in believe-let-05 all confirmed against the extracts).
• Phase-5 verifier (opus, fresh context) → PASS-WITH-NITS (2); both fixed: the bans[] controlled-vocab/date split and the Engelhardt-date prose. Report: _verifier-report.md.

Evaluation self-assessment (work-dive gate)

• Interlocutor sweep yielded people? Yes — 33 diary persons + the letter network; Chertkov as catalyst, Ge, Urusov, Strakhov, the cousin, Engelhardt all carried into entities.
• Russian society/Church reception covered? Yes — full censorship chain + refutation literature
• the cautious 1901 reading (Phase-3 pass).
• workRecord fill accurate & provenanced? Yes — every field evidence/commentary-anchored; schema-clean after the nit fix; uncertain fields → needsReview.
• coverage honest? Yes — “later verdict” honestly not-covered; Reception self-flags its limit.
• --choice=reg extracted cleanly? Yes — no dropped pre-reform pairs; diary/letter bodies needed --notes=auto (the <note type="comments"> quirk).
• Spine stayed bare? Yes — verifier confirmed attribute-don’t-assert across all standing sections; contested labels cross-linked, not adopted.

Models & rough cost

Main loop: Opus (in-session). Subagents: 3× Sonnet sweeps (diaries / letters / visuals) + 1× Sonnet scholarship + 1× Opus verifier. Subagent tokens ≈ 514k total (diaries 118k, letters 82k, visuals 80k, scholarship 100k, verifier 135k). Five web-tool sweeps (visuals + scholarship); no licence-gated downloads to website/src/.

Output paths

• docs/research/1882-1884-what-i-believe/index.md (+ rendered index.html, git-ignored)
• docs/research/1882-1884-what-i-believe/dossier.yaml
• docs/research/1882-1884-what-i-believe/extracts/ (PD extracts + working syntheses kept as provenance)
• docs/research/1882-1884-what-i-believe/visuals/ (git-ignored cache; 11 PD images)
• website/src/posts/notes/2026-06-06-what-i-believe.md (draft)
• session-log.md, _verifier-report.md, this run-report.md

Wiki ingestion is a separate, human-in-the-loop step — this dossier is the pointer, not the writer.