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Yefim Kirilov
also: Ефим Кирилов, Village Elder Kirilov, Староста Ефим Кирилов
The village elder (starosta) of Kurnosovo whose semi-literate, garbled report of two sick schoolboys -- rendered in comically ungrammatical peasant officialese -- sets the whole bureaucratic chain reaction in motion.
Reading notes
- A Great Deal of Paper §2 Village Elder Yefim Kirilov
The starosta (village elder) was an elected peasant official, the lowest rung of village self-administration, responsible for reporting local incidents -- illness, crime, disputes -- up the chain to the zemstvo and police authorities. Kirilov's report, rendered here in barely literate, ungrammatical peasant chancery Russian, is the spark that ignites the entire bureaucratic correspondence that follows.