Khokhol

Reading notes

• The Man in a Case §20 khokhol

  A period term for a Ukrainian, from a traditional forelock hairstyle; used here of Kovalenko's own background and, later, affectionately of Varenka's laughing or weeping.

• The Beauties §18 a Ukrainian in a long waistcoat

  Renders 'хохол' (khokhol), the period ethnic term/mild slur for a Ukrainian, applied here to the farmhand driving the threshing horses; see the fuller note on the term at its first corpus appearance in 'The Tragedian.' The word recurs at loc 20 for the second, near-identical farmhand.

• The Beauties §20 such a Ukrainian

  A second, unnamed farmhand doing the same threshing work in a neighboring yard, again called 'khokhol' in the original; the doubling underscores how interchangeable the narrator finds the minor figures around Masha.

• To M. P. Chekhova, 4 April 1887. Slavyansk. §3 khokhols

  "Khokhols" (Russian "хохлы", singular "хохол") was a common nineteenth-century Russian colloquial nickname for Ukrainians, taken from the traditional "chub" or forelock of hair worn by Cossack men. In Chekhov's day it was used casually, often without conscious malice, in ethnographic and travel writing as well as private speech; it is now widely recognized as an ethnic slur, and its use here -- in an unguarded travel note to his sister, alongside the mock-zoological "birds, crocodiles, zebras" catalogue of the fogbound landscape -- reflects the ordinary, unreflective ethnic labeling common among educated Russians of the period rather than a considered statement. It is preserved untranslated-in-spirit (transliterated, not softened) as a document of period usage, not endorsed.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 20 December 1889. Moscow. §2 khokhol laziness

  "Khokhol" (from "хохол," the traditional forelock/topknot worn by Cossack men) is the same period Russian ethnic-regional term for Ukrainians already catalogued in this corpus as and elsewhere used by Chekhov of himself. Here Chekhov -- who was of Ukrainian ("Little Russian") descent on his father's side, the family having come from the Sumy region -- again applies the term to himself, informally and self-deprecatingly, to explain why he lacks the courage to actually withdraw from literary life and retrain himself as he says he wishes to. This is Chekhov's own self-reference, carries no slur toward any third party in this context, and is translated plainly here as "khokhol laziness" (transliterated, not softened, paraphrased, or omitted), per this corpus's explicit no-softening policy for the term.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 20 December 1889. Moscow. §3 khokhol logic

  Translated plainly and consistently with \S2's "khokhol laziness" rather than varied or softened; see that note for the fuller discussion of the term's status in this corpus.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 18 November 1891. Moscow. §10 You are wrong not to like Khokhols. In Poltava province they are not children, not actors, but real folk

  Renders "хохлов" (khokhlov), the genitive plural of "хохол" (khokhol) -- a period ethnic slur for Ukrainians, taken from the traditional forelock ("хохол") of Ukrainian Cossack hairstyle and used, then as later, in a dismissive or mocking register by Russians toward Ukrainians. This edition translates it at full force as "Khokhols" rather than softening it to the neutral "Ukrainians," per the corpus's no-softening policy for genuine slurs (compare's жид/"kike", rendered at equivalent force for the same reason): euphemizing the word here would misrepresent Chekhov's actual usage and, more importantly, flatten the shape of the sentence itself, which only makes sense as a rebuke if the slur is heard as a slur. This is the corpus's other principal full-force ethnic-slur case, and it is worth being exact about how it differs from жид. In, Chekhov's own sentence reproduces and depends on an antisemitic premise (that self-directed abuse between Jews is peculiarly "repugnant") even while making an unrelated point about propriety; the slur there is unexamined background assumption. Here the shape is the reverse: Chekhov is quoting and then directly contesting Suvorin's prejudice. "Напрасно Вы не любите хохлов" -- "You are wrong not to like Khokhols" -- concedes that Suvorin holds the dismissive view (using, evidently, the term Suvorin himself would use or that Chekhov expects him to recognize) and then argues against its content: the Poltava Ukrainians Chekhov has actually met, house-hunting for a farmstead in the province that autumn, are "не дети, не актеры, а настоящий народ" -- "not children, not actors, but real folk" -- "да еще вдобавок сытый и веселый" -- "and what's more, well-fed and cheerful." The rebuttal is aimed precisely at the two most common period caricatures of Ukrainians in Russian high culture: as figures of childish simplicity (the paternalistic view) or as stock comic performers, the operetta "хохол" of vaudeville and popular theater (the mocking view) -- "не актеры" reads as a pointed jab at exactly that stage stereotype. Against both, Chekhov offers plain, unsentimental testimony from firsthand contact: real people, prosperous and content, encountered while he was scouting Cossack-owned land near Khomutets and Bakumovka (see, three years earlier -- the same house-hunting project that put him in Poltava province in the first place). It is a small moment, but a genuine one: Chekhov using a slur he expects his addressee to recognize in order to name and then reject the prejudice behind it, rather than to enact it. The edition renders it at full force precisely so that this pushback is visible in English -- a softened "Ukrainians" would erase the fact that Chekhov is answering a slur, not merely a preference.

• To A. I. Smagin, 21 November 1891. Moscow. §17 a wolf's appetite for Ukrainian sausage

  Here, however, the word modifies a foodstuff, not a person: it identifies a regional style of sausage (Ukrainian/"Little Russian" charcuterie, associated with the Poltava region where the estate under negotiation lies), in a comic list of things the household plans to bring south, alongside a mongoose, black elephants, and a revolver. This is the clearest neutral instance of the root anywhere in the corpus -- more neutral even than Chekhov's self-directed uses (compare's "khokhol (self-applied)"), since no person is being characterized at all. Rendered plainly as "Ukrainian sausage," the ordinary English equivalent for the dish, per this corpus's mirror policy for unmarked-in-context uses of a root that is elsewhere a genuine slur (see also's хохлы/кацапы note for the same reasoning applied to a different pair of terms). Immediately followed in the same sentence's continuation (\S17, "revile the Yids") by a wholly different case -- a genuine, unsoftened ethnic slur directed at people -- which this note deliberately does not conflate with the present, neutral, food-adjective usage.

• To A. I. Smagin, 26 January 1892. Moscow. §4 The Khokhols would do best to resettle in Semipalatinsk province and the Ussuri territory

  Renders "\foreignlanguage{russian}{Хохлам}" / "\foreignlanguage{russian}{хохлов}" (khokhol), the same period ethnonym for Ukrainians treated at full force elsewhere in this corpus (see \S10, where Chekhov quotes and rebuts Suvorin's dismissive use of the word). This letter's own usage is of a markedly different character: Chekhov is answering a practical query from Smagin about where famine-displaced Ukrainian peasants should resettle, and his tone throughout \S4 is businesslike and informational -- best destinations, comparative climate, existing Poltava-Ukrainian settlements already established in the Ussuri territory, and the correct institutional channel (the Society for the Study of the Amur Region) for further information. Nothing here carries the mocking or paternalistic charge that Chekhov himself identifies and pushes back against in, where the word is Suvorin's own dismissive term and the sentence's whole point is to rebuke the prejudice behind it. This edition nonetheless keeps the same corpus-consistent rendering, "Khokhols," here as elsewhere -- per the established practice of translating this term at full force regardless of the speaker's tone in a given instance (compare's note), since softening it case-by-case to a neutral "Ukrainians" would erase the word's real ethnic charge in Russian and make the corpus's usage inconsistent from letter to letter. The distinction worth preserving for the record: in the word is Suvorin's slur, quoted and then contested by Chekhov; here it is Chekhov's own plain, unmarked usage in the context of famine-relief resettlement advice, closer to habitual period vocabulary than to any expressed animus. The rendering is identical; the register behind it is not.

• To V. V. Bilibin, 22 February 1892. Moscow. §4 But alas! I have been unfaithful to the Khokhols and their songs

  Renders "\foreignlanguage{russian}{хохлам}" (khokhol), the same period ethnonym for Ukrainians treated elsewhere in this corpus (see \S10, where Chekhov quotes and rebuts Suvorin's dismissive use of the word, and \S4, where he uses it in plain, businesslike famine-relief advice). Here the register is affectionate and self-deprecating: Chekhov is joking that in buying land in the cold Serpukhov district instead of Malorossiya, he has been "unfaithful" to the Ukrainian people and songs he loves. This edition nonetheless keeps the same corpus-consistent rendering, "Khokhols," here as elsewhere -- per the established practice of translating this term at full force regardless of the speaker's tone or register in a given instance (compare the note), since softening it case-by-case to a neutral "Ukrainians" -- the earlier draft's choice at this very passage -- would erase the word's real ethnic charge in Russian and make the corpus's usage inconsistent from letter to letter. The word carries genuine ethnic marking even when, as here, it is used affectionately and self-mockingly by a speaker who elsewhere professes real fondness for the people and culture it names.

• The Steppe: The Story of a Journey §277 Khokhols

  Renders \emph{хохлы}, a period ethnonym for Ukrainian peasants (from a traditional forelock hairstyle, the \emph{khokhol}), ranging in register from casual/folk usage to outright pejorative depending on context; this corpus renders the term consistently as "Khokhols" per policy established in earlier translated Chekhov letters.

• The Steppe: The Story of a Journey §379 Khokhols

  A second occurrence of \emph{хохлы} (see the note at section 277); this one is rendered as "Khokhols," the normalized form for this corpus. The word here describes the crowd of ordinary parishioners standing around the local gentry couple at the front of the church -- casual/descriptive rather than confrontational in context, but still the same ethnonym, and still worth a reader's awareness.

• The Tragedian §14 khokhol

  A period ethnic slur for a Ukrainian (from a traditional forelock hairstyle); the police-captain uses it in his letter disowning Masha for marrying Fenogenov.