concept

1889-1890 Russian flu pandemic

the 1889 influenza pandemic

also: Russian flu, Asiatic flu, грипп, Influenza

A real global influenza pandemic (sometimes called the "Russian flu" or "Asiatic flu") that began spreading from Russia in the autumn of 1889 and continued into 1890, one of the first epidemics to be tracked internationally via telegraph reporting. Chekhov, himself a physician, refers to it with dry clinical understatement in reply to Suvorin's headache, noting drily that both people and horses were suffering from it -- a real contemporary event, not a private joke or invented ailment.

Reading notes

To A. S. Suvorin, 12 November 1889. Moscow. §9 Influenza
Chekhov's dry, mock-clinical gloss on "influenza" is not a private joke or invented ailment: the letter falls squarely within the outbreak later called the "Russian flu" (sometimes "Asiatic flu"), a genuine pandemic that spread from Russia across Europe and much of the world starting in 1889 and running into 1890, one of the first major epidemics tracked by international telegraph reporting. Chekhov -- himself a physician -- treats the disease with characteristic clinical understatement ("an illness long known to doctors"), deflating Suvorin's complaint of a headache with the same brisk, unsentimental diagnosis he gives his fictional doctors elsewhere in the corpus; both people and horses did in fact suffer from equine and human strains of influenza circulating that season, so "болеют им и люди, и лошади" is offered as plain observed fact, not whimsy.
To N. N. Obolonsky, 29–30 November 1889. Moscow. §2 Influenza, having taken possession of my entire being
Chekhov, physician and patient both, opens with a mock-grandiose diagnosis of his own case of the 1889-1890 influenza pandemic then sweeping Russia -- the same epidemic he had described drily to Suvorin days earlier in; here it has become personal, keeping the doctor himself from calling on his friend.
To N. N. Obolonsky, 29–30 November 1889. Moscow. §3 May influenza perish, and may great men live long -- myself included, and you as well!
A mock-solemn toast, parodying the formula of a formal wish for the health/longevity of great men ("да здравствуют") by yoking it to the trivial and slightly absurd request that influenza itself simply cease to exist -- Chekhov placing himself and Obolonsky, tongue in cheek, among the "great men" who deserve to be spared it.
To M. V. Kiseleva, 3 December 1889. Moscow. §9 I have a regular case of influenza
The 1889-1890 "Russian flu" pandemic, which Chekhov -- himself a physician -- reports having caught; see also and from the same weeks, where he and his Moscow circle track the same outbreak.