concept
Order of Takovo
Takovo
also: орден Такова, Takovo Order, Royal Order of Takovo
A real Serbian order of chivalry, instituted in 1865 by Prince (later King) Milan Obrenovic to commemorate the 1815 uprising launched at Takovo; like the Persian Order of the Lion and the Sun, it was awarded to foreigners and became, in Chekhov's closing line, the next object of Kutsyn's insatiable appetite for decorations once the Persian order's novelty has worn off.
Reading notes
- The Lion and the Sun §42 the Serbian Order of Takovo
The Order of Takovo was a real Serbian order of chivalry, instituted in 1865 by Prince (later King) Milan Obrenovic to commemorate an 1815 uprising against Ottoman rule launched at the village of Takovo; like the Lion and the Sun, it was sometimes awarded to foreigners. Chekhov's closing joke depends on the reader recognizing it as simply the next in an endless series of decorations Kutsyn could chase -- the story ends not on satisfaction but on the same "passionate, agonizing" want with which it began, now redirected.