concept
"out of deference to the taste and the nose of a certain Israelite lady" (вкусу и носу известной Вам израильтянки)
taste and nose of an Israelite lady
also: вкусу и носу известной Вам израильтянки, taste and the nose of a certain Israelite lady
An antisemitic remark opening this letter: explaining a red cord he wears around his neck, Chekhov jokes that he wears it "out of deference to the taste and the nose" of an unnamed Jewish woman known to Kiseleva ("известной Вам израильтянки" -- "a certain Israelite lady known to you"). The joke trades on the antisemitic caricature of the Jewish nose as an object of mockery, invoked here to insinuate -- crudely and at a specific, unnamed woman's expense -- some private erotic or marital connection Chekhov then disclaims ("there was no merit whatever on my part"). Unlike the self-deprecating slur-idioms found elsewhere in this correspondence (e.g., where the joke is turned on Chekhov himself), this remark targets a real, specific individual through a demeaning physical stereotype, making it one of the more pointed instances of casual antisemitism in the corpus rather than a purely idiomatic one. It documents the unexamined prejudice common in the private vernacular of educated Russians of Chekhov's generation and milieu and should not be read as representative of his mature public views or his later personal and professional relationships, which included many Jewish friends, colleagues, and subjects treated with sympathy in his fiction. Per this corpus's editorial policy of presenting historical material factually rather than suppressing, softening, or euphemizing documented usage, the remark is preserved in translation and flagged here for context. It is not endorsed.
Reading notes
- To M. V. Kiseleva, 21 March 1887. Moscow. §3 out of deference to the taste and the nose of a certain Israelite lady known to you
translates "из уважения к вкусу и носу известной Вам израильтянки" ("out of deference to the taste and the nose of a certain Israelite lady known to you"), the opening joke of the letter, explaining the red cord Chekhov wears round his neck. "Израильтянка" ("Israelite," here a period-polite-sounding but still ethnically marking term for a Jewish woman) is paired with "nose" -- an allusion to the antisemitic caricature of the Jewish nose as a mark of ridicule -- to insinuate, crudely and at a specific, unnamed woman's expense, some private romantic or marital connection that Chekhov then explicitly disclaims ("there was no merit whatever on my part"). Unlike several other instances of casual antisemitic idiom elsewhere in this correspondence, where the joke is self-deprecating and turned on Chekhov himself (compare "as the learned Yids say,"), this remark targets a real individual through a demeaning physical stereotype, making it a more pointed example of the period's casual antisemitism rather than a purely idiomatic or self-directed one. The woman's identity is not otherwise recovered in the corpus as currently built. This documents the unexamined prejudice common in the private vernacular of educated Russians of Chekhov's generation and milieu; it should not be read as representative of his mature public views or his later personal and professional relationships, which included many Jewish friends, colleagues, and subjects treated with sympathy and complexity in his mature fiction. Per this corpus's editorial policy of presenting historical material factually rather than suppressing, softening, or euphemizing documented usage, the remark is preserved in translation and flagged here for context. It is not endorsed.