Zamechaniia na vospominaniia F.F. Vigelia. Iz dnevnykh zapisok I. P. Liprandi [Comments to the Memoirs of F. F. Vigel'. From the diary entries of I. P. Liprandi] by Liprandi, I[van] P[etrovich]

Moscow: V universitetskoi tipografii, 1873. Octavo (26.5 × 17 cm). Original printed wrappers; 193, IV pp. One folding map. Stamp of the A. I. Tiumenev library to title. Light soil to wrappers and foxing to text; else about very good. First edition. A rebuttal to the famous memoirs of Filipp Vigel' (1786-1856), first published in 1864, in which Vigel' described all the main events of the reign of Alexander I, including the Napoleonic Wars and the Decembrist uprising. A member of the Arzamas circle and an acquaintance of Pushkin, in his memoirs, known as the "Notes," Vigel' characterizes many of his famous contemporaries, with very unfavorable views of the writer Nicolai Gogol, the philosopher Peter Chadaev, as well as of the author of this text. Although the "Notes" were published posthumously, Vigel' held many public readings of the memoirs and they circulated in manuscript, frustrating individuals who were presented in unfavorable light and sparking public debate. Despite the acknowledged inaccuracies, Vigel's "Notes" continued to serve as a source on early nineteenth-century Russia and were re-published in 1929, becoming a rarity thereafter.

The author of this text, Ivan Liprandi (1790-1880), was characterized as a member of the secret police in the memoirs. This publication, based on Liprandi's diaries, undertakes a step-by-step refutation of Vigel's memories and characterizations. Aiming to discredit Vigel', Liprandi notes that he was known to contradict himself and to "say different things of the same individual from one day to the next, based on his changing moods alone." Liprandi was in fact a member of the secret police, but is best remembered today as a military historian and author of memoirs about Pushkin, with whom he was closely associated. Among Liprandi's other writings is a meticulously researched history of the war of 1812. Leo Tolstoy cited Liprandi in "War and Peace" and sent Liprandi a presentation copy. As of January 2020, KVK and OCLC show copies at Columbia, Penn, Indiana, Münster, and Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.