concept
Aul of the Half-Savage Peoples
the Aul
also: Аул полудиких народов
A mocking nickname Chekhov's tutoring pupil uses for his own home village and its Ukrainian inhabitants; an 'aul' is properly a Caucasian or Central Asian mountain village, borrowed here as an exotic-sounding put-down for an ordinary rural place.
Reading notes
- To M. M. Chekhov, 1 January 1877. Taganrog. §4 Aul of the Half-Savage Peoples
Chekhov's pupil's own mocking nickname for his home village and its Ukrainian ('khokhol') inhabitants; an 'aul' is properly a Caucasian or Central Asian mountain village, so the term is doubly a joke, borrowing an exotic-sounding word for a very ordinary rural place.