person
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Beaconsfield
also: Биконсфильд, Beaconsfield, Disraeli
British statesman and novelist of Jewish descent, twice prime minister; his title "Beaconsfield" is invoked here, plural, as a byword for a prominent Jewish name.
Reading notes
- Obscure People §28 Beaconsfield
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, twice British prime minister, died in April 1881; by the story's 1887 setting he had been dead some six years, which is precisely Lyashkevsky's joke at the townsfolk's expense -- they are still, in his telling, indignantly discussing a statesman who is no longer alive, evidence of their disconnection from current events despite their endless political talk.
- To S. Kramayev, 8 May 1881. Moscow. §4 Beaconsfields
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, the British statesman of Jewish descent; his surname stands in here, alongside Rothschild, as a byword for a prominent Jewish family name in a mock-reassurance that such people are safe in Moscow.