I wish to express here my thanks to Ray Parrott, Vadim Kreyd, and Robert Mann, whose critical reading of this manuscript at various stages has been very helpful.

1. Of the critical works devoted to Garshin, the following have been most useful in the preparationof this paper: Pamiati V. M. Garshina (St. Petersburg: Tip. V. I. Shteina, 1889). This volumecontains three articles bearing directly on “Krasnyi tsvetok “: V. Fausek, “Pamiati VsevolodaMikhailovicha Garshina,” pp. 77–123; Gleb Uspenskii, “Smert’ V. M. Garshina,” pp. 147–160; and I.Sikkorskii, “Krasnyi tsvetok,” pp. 208–214. Early critical responses to Garshin's work are found inPolnoe sobranie sochinenii V. M. Garshina (St. Petersburg: A. F. Marks, 1910) in the articles by K. K.Arsen'ev, “V. M. Garshin i ego tvorchestvo,” pp. 515–539, and O. F. Miller, “Pamiati V. M. Garshina,” pp. 550–561. Overviews of his work may be found in D. N. Ovsianiko-Kulikovskii, Istoriia russkoi lileratury XIX v., 5 vols. (Moscow: Mir, 1908–1910); in the commentary to V. M. Garshin, Rasskazy, ed., Iu. G. Oksman (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1928); G. A. Bialyi, V. M. Garshin (Moscow: Goslitizdat, 1955); E. I. Kiiko, “Garshin,” Istoriia russkoi literatury, 10 vols. (Moscow-Leningrad: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1941–1956) 9 [1956]: 291–310; VI. Porudominskii, Garshin (Moscow: Molodaiagvardiia, 1962); la. Karaev, “Garshin, V. M., ,” Kratkaia Uteraturnaia entsiklopediia, 9 vols. (Moscow: Sovetskaia entsiklopediia, 1962–1978) 2: 79–81 Google Scholar; Bialyi, G. A., Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin (Leningrad: Prosveshchenie, 1969 Google Scholar. Specialized studies of interest are those of Bazhenov, N. N., “Dushevnaia dramaGarshina,” in his Psikhiatricheskie besedy (Moscow: Mamontov, 1903), pp. 16–17, 104–122Google Scholar; Skvoznikov, V. D., “Realizm i romantika v proizvedeniiakh V. M. Garshina,” Izvestiia Akademii nauk SSSR, Otdelenie literatury i iazyka, vol. 16, vyp. 3 (Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1957, pp. 233–246 Google Scholar; Schön, Luise, Die dichterische Symbolik V. M. Garšins (Munich: Sagner, 1978 Google Scholar. Also consulted was V. Garshin, M., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, Oksman, Iu. G., ed., vol. 3, Pis'ma (Moscow-Leningrad: Academia, 1934)Google Scholar. Two detailed monographs exist in English: Yarwood, Edmund, Vsevolod Garshin (Boston: Twayne, 1981 Google Scholar, and Henry, Peter, A Hamlet of His Time: Vsevolod Garshin (Oxford: Willem A. Meeuws, 1983)Google Scholar.The student of Garshin will want to consult Yarwood's “A Bibliography of Works by and about Vsevolod M. Garshin (1855–1888),” Russian Literature Triquarterly, no. 17 (1982), pp. 227–241.

2. Uspenskii, “Smert’ V. M. Garshina,” p. 154; Arsen'ev, “V. M. Garshin i ego tvorchestvo,” pp.534–535; Miller, “Pamiati V. M. Garshina,” p. 560; Bialyi, Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin, p. 76. Thissame general conclusion has been reached by Martine Artz: “Current Soviet interpretations of‘TheRed Flower’ as a revolutionary podvig is in broad lines that of the populist revolutionaries before therevolution.” “'The Red Flower’ of V. M. Garšin and‘The Black Monk’ of A. P. Čechov,” Russian Literature 20, no. 3 (1986): 267–295.

3. This view is repeated by D. N. Ovsianiko-Kulikovskii, htoriia russkoi lileraluryXIXv., 5 vols. (Moscow: Mir, 1908–1910) 4: 358; by Iu. Oksman, in his commentary to Rasskazy (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoeizdatel'stvo, 1928), p. 357; and by Schonö, Die dichterische Symbolik V. M. Garsins, p. 162.

4. Fausek, “Pamiati Vsevoloda Mikhailovicha Garshina,” pp. 92–93, 95.

5. Bazhenov, N. N., “Dushevnaia drama Garshina,” Psikhiatricheskie besedy (Moscow: Mamontov, 1903, p. 122 Google Scholar.

6. Yarwood, Vsevolod Garshin, p. 73.

7. The text used for this paper is Vsevolod Garshin, Rasskazy, 11th. ed. (St. Petersburg: M. M.Stasiulevich, 1907), pp. 285–304.

8. See J Hammer, Joseph von, “Über den heiligen Georg und dessen Verwandt schaft mit Chisr, Kedar, Elias und Mithras,” Theologische Studien undKritiken 2 (1831): 829–832 Google Scholar, and Hermann Alfredvon Gutschmid, “Über die Sage vom heiligen Georg, als Beitrag zur iranischen Mythengeschichte,” Berichte über die Verhandlungen der königlich sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, Philologischhistorische Klasse, 13 (Leipzig, 1861), pp. 175–202. The proponent of this idea in Russia was Kirpichnikov, Aleksandr, Sviatoi Georgii i Egorii Khrabryi (St. Petersburg, 1879)Google Scholar. Kirpichnikov repeated thesame arguments in his entry on St. George for the Brokgauz-Efron Entsiklopedicheskii slovar', 86 vols. (St. Petersburg: Semenovskaia tipolitografiia, 1890–1907), 15 [1897]. Kirpichnikov's view is treatedas authoritative in the entry on George, St. in the Bol'shaia entsiklopediia, 22 vols. (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1902–1909) 6: 455–456 Google Scholar, namely, that St. George attracted to himself “part of the cult ofMithra.” Kirpichnikov's book is also cited by Hippolyte Delehaye in his Les Legendes grecques des saints militaires (Paris: Librairie Alphonse Picard et Fils, 1909), p. 45 (reprint, New York: Arno, 1975), in a chapter devoted to St. George

9. One such variant, “Histoire de Georges,” may be found in Abou-Djafar-Mo'hammed Tabari, Chronique, trans. Hermann Zotenberg, 2 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1869) 2: 54–66.

10. The significance of St. George for the Russian peasantry was profound and wide-rangingand awaits further investigation. Some of the aspects of this relationship have been examined byMaria Lunk in “A Study of the Thematic Typology of the Religious Folk Verses (duxovnye stixi)” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1985).

11. Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ 8: 417.

12. Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ 15: 420. See also Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 15 vols. (New York: Scribner's, 1956–1959) 8: 753a.

13. Biographical Dictionary of the Saints, ed. Rt. Rev. F. G. Holweck (London: Herder, 1924), p. 423.

14. Showerman, Grant, “Mithras,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., 32 vols. (London: Cambridge University Press, 1911) 18: 624 Google Scholar.

15. Peter Henry, in chap. 7, “Battling with Ahriman,” of his A Hamlet of His Time (pp. 146–169), treats many of the features of this tale from the same point of view as this paper. Henry views theOrmuzd-Ahriman conflict as an archetypal pattern (pp. 162–163) and also sees the mixture ofZoroastrian and Christian elements, but he does not make a case for a St. George-Mithra linkage.Not all sources write consistently about Mithra and his relationship to Ahriman and eschatology, and a distinction must be made between the Iranian Mithra and the Roman Mithra. One of theearliest and most complete descriptions of Mithraism is that of Cumont, Franz, Textes et monuments retatifs aux mysteres de Mithra (Brussels: Lamertin, 1896–1899)Google Scholar. An excellent discussion by H. StuartJones is to be found in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics 8: 752–759, but it should be supplementedby Showerman's entry in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Yet another general work isMaarten Vermaseren's, J. Mithras, the Secret God (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1959 Google Scholar. Extremelyinteresting for its photographs and recency is the work of Campbell, Leroy A., Mithraic Iconography and Ideology (Leiden: Brill, 1968 Google Scholar. A spate of books devoted to Mithraism and Mithraic artifactsfound in recent archaeological excavations has appeared in the past ten years. One of the best illustratedis Squarciapino, Maria Florian, Culti orientali ad Ostia (Leiden: Brill, 1962)Google Scholar.

16. See Cumont, Franz, The Mysteries of Mithra (New York: Dover, 1956, pp. 190–191 Google Scholar.

17. Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics 8: 757; Gutschmid, “Über die Sage vom heiligen Georg,” p. 197.

18. Darmesteter, James, Ormazd et Ahriman (Paris: Vieweg, 1877, p. 117 Google Scholar. In his book, Recherches sur le cult public et les mystères de Mithra en Orient et en Occident (Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1847), Felix Lajard says, “Les étoiles… sont appelées … les soldats des astres” (p. 137).

19. Gutschmid, “Über die Sage vom heiligen Georg,” p. 190.

20. Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman, p. 116.

21. Tikhonravov, Nikolai, Pamiatniki otechennoi russkoi literatury, 2 vols. (Moscow: Universitetskaiatipografiia, 1863) 2: 105 Google Scholar. “Giorgievo muchenie” is on pp. 100–111. (reprint, The Hague: Mouton, 1970).

22. Bessonov, Petr, Kaleki perekhozhie, 3 vols. (Moscow: Semena, 1861) 1: 393–504 Google Scholar. (This editionis available in a reprint, Westmead, U.K.: Gregg, 1980).

23. Bessonov, Kaleki perekhozhie, p. 413; Gutschmid, “Über die Sage vom heiligen Georg,” p.176; al-Tabari, Chronique, p. 57; Tikhonravov, Pamiatniki, p. 106.

24. Lajard, Recherches sur le culte public et les mysteres de Mithra, p. 139.

25. Windischmann, Friedrich, Mithra: Ein Beitrag zur Mythengeschichte des Orients, Abhandlungen fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 1847–1919 (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1859) 1: 1–89, esp. p. 69Google Scholar.

26. Kirpichnikov, Sviatoi Georgii i Egorii Khrabryi, p.84. In this passage Kirpichnikov comparesthe Mithraic initiation with the tortures of St. George.

27. Windischmann, Mithra, p. 73, and Lejard, Recherches sur le culte public et les mysteres de Mithra, p. 133.

28. Félix Lajard, Recherches sur le culte public et les mystères de Mithra, p. 117.

29. I have not been able to pinpoint the “leonine festival” as a specific calendrical date, but someinformation suggests a syncretism of the date dedicated to Mithra and the 23 April Roman celebrationcalled the Vinalia. Vinalia was dedicated to Jupiter, whose attributes are very much like those ofMithra: Jupiter is the god of light and was worshipped on hilltops brightened by the first rays ofsunlight; treaties were ratified in his name; he was considered a witness to marriage contracts; and hewas associated with agriculture at least to the extent that he was appealed to when rain was needed (see the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics 10: 824–825).

30. Kirpichnikov, , “Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin,” Vestnik vospitaniia, no. 1 (January 1903), pp. 15–37 Google Scholar, esp. pp. 16 and 31.