Did Stalin really say so?

[Lauren Leighton]

-----Original Message-----
From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
[mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU]On Behalf Of Mitsu Numano
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 10:23 AM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: [SEELANGS] Did Stalin really say so?


Dear Colleagues,
Could anybody tell me whether it is right to attribute the saying gA
single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistich to Stalin?

Sorry for that hip shot. My Oxford Dictionary of Quotations attributes the
saying to Beilby Porteus (1731-1808), a poem titled "Death": "One murder
made a villain, / Millions a hero. (l. 155). And yet . . . I still somehow
hear Shakespeare: "One murder hath a villain made..." or "...doth a villain
make..." I don't know the context of the Porteus poem, but I definitely
remember that the saying was applied to Napoleon.


Mitsuyoshi Numano
Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures
The University of Tokyo

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