26 LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 



and Effrone's Encyclopaedia : " The Metchnikoffs are 

 a noble family, descended from a Moldavian Boyar, 

 the Spatar (sword-bearer) Joury Stepanovitch, 1 who 

 came to Russia with Prince Cant emir. Peter the 

 Great gave this Boyar large land estates. His son 

 took the name of Metchnikoff (Russian translation 

 of Sword-bearer)." 



The following generations included military men 

 chiefly, one sailor, one mining engineer, one senator, 

 but no scientific men. 



On the mother's side, Elie Metchnikoff had no 

 ancestor as remarkable or as romantic as the great 

 Spatar. Yet his grandfather, Leo Nevahovitch, was 

 a very intelligent and highly cultivated man. He had 

 been Farmer-General for tobacco in Poland. A Jew 

 by race, he took to heart the persecutions directed 

 against his co-religionists and defended them in 

 literary newspaper articles. Nevertheless he accepted 

 indirect advice from Alexander I. and let himself be 

 baptized. He adopted the Lutheran religion and his 

 children were brought up in it. 



At the beginning of the Polish Revolution in 1830, 

 Nevahovitch was warned that his house was about 

 to be sacked ; the warning reached him as he was 

 peacefully enjoying a theatrical performance. He 

 hurried to prepare for departure and left Warsaw 

 with his family for Petersburg, where he lived on his 

 income. Having given up business, he took up literary 

 work and translated German philosophical works, 

 made friends in the literary world, and knew Pushkin 

 and Kriloff. His children, Emilia Lvovna amongst 

 others, inherited his intellectual gifts. One of his 

 sons was a remarkable caricaturist and edited a cari- 



1 This Boyar was no doubt a nephew of the Great Spatar. 



