concept
"Long-nosed Greeks... except Taganrog" -- in-group joke, not a slur
Taganrog Greeks joke
also: длинноносых греков, которых... во всем свете, кроме Таганрога, считают большими мошенниками и невеждами
Renders "длинноносых греков, которых, кстати сказать, во всем свете, кроме Таганрога, считают большими мошенниками и невеждами" (S5): Chekhov's aside, in a letter to his Taganrog cousin, that the long-nosed Greeks of the Archipelago -- exporters of olives and Santorini wine -- are held to be great swindlers and ignoramuses everywhere in the world except Taganrog. This is a real, mildly derogatory ethnic joke in the source (mошенники, "swindlers/crooks," and невежды, "ignoramuses," are unambiguously uncomplimentary), translated at full force per this corpus's no-softening policy rather than euphemized. But its shape and target differ from the corpus's genuine-prejudice passages: it is addressed to a native of Taganrog, a town with a substantial and locally prominent Greek merchant community (Chekhov's own boyhood home), and its punchline exempts precisely that community's home city from the slander -- an affectionate, complicit in-joke that only lands because the addressee will recognize and enjoy the local reference, not a generalized slur aimed at an out-group. Compare and, both passages of unambiguous hostile contempt with no such in-group wink; this passage is translated honestly rather than softened, but is not equivalent in register or intent to those harsher cases.
Reading notes
- To G. M. Chekhov, 29 December 1890. Moscow. §5 длинноносых греков, которых, кстати сказать, во всем свете, кроме Таганрога, считают большими мошенниками и невеждами
"Long-nosed Greeks, who, incidentally, are considered great swindlers and ignoramuses everywhere in the world except Taganrog." This is a real, mildly derogatory ethnic joke in the Russian -- мошенники ("swindlers/crooks") and невежды ("ignoramuses") are genuinely uncomplimentary terms, not neutral description -- and it is translated at full force here, per this corpus's no-softening policy, rather than euphemized into something blander. But its shape is different from the corpus's passages of genuine ethnic contempt (compare's "low-browed, broad-cheekboned Asiatics," or's use of жид): Chekhov is writing to his own cousin, a native of Taganrog, a town whose substantial Greek merchant community (exporters of exactly the olives and Santorini wine he has just mentioned) was a familiar fixture of the Chekhovs' own boyhood home. The joke's punchline exempts Taganrog specifically -- "everywhere... except Taganrog" -- because the city's Greek trading families were locally known and, evidently, locally exempted from the stock slander in local lore; it is an in-group wink that only works because Georgy will recognize and enjoy the local reference, not a slur lobbed at a faceless out-group. This does not make the underlying stereotype (Greek traders as swindlers) any less real or any less worth naming honestly -- it is still a period ethnic slander repeated for a laugh -- but it reads as affectionate-mocking hometown humor rather than the hostile contempt found elsewhere in this corpus, and the glossary records that distinction rather than flattening the two registers together.