concept
Samovar
samovar
also: самовар
A metal urn used to heat water for tea, kept perpetually hot on the stove or table; a fixture of Russian domestic life and a stock comic image for sudden inner warmth or excitement.
Reading notes
- Anyuta §48 самовар
The samovar, the traditional Russian urn for boiling water for tea, is the story's closing image: an offstage voice calling for it underscores the utterly mundane, unresolved note on which Klochkov and Anyuta's scene ends.
- The Kulachye's Nest §3 samovar
A samovar is a heated metal urn used to boil water for tea, a fixture of Russian domestic and inn life; the painted samovar on the tavern sign advertises refreshments to passersby.
- The Wood Demon §1134 samovar
A metal urn used to heat water for tea, kept perpetually hot on the stove or table; a fixture of Russian domestic life, invoked here by Dyadin as an emblem of settled married happiness.
- A Lost Cause §27 samovar
A metal urn used to heat water for tea, kept perpetually warm on the stove or table; the narrator likens the sudden heat in his chest to one being lit inside him.
- In the Drawing Room §14 samovar
A heated metal urn used to boil water for tea, a fixture of Russian domestic life; ordering it lit signals the household's return to its normal evening routine after the interrupted tryst.
- At the Almshouse for the Incurable and the Aged §22 samovar
A metal urn for heating water for tea, a fixture of Russian domestic and institutional life; its appearance here signals the ritual, dreaded tea-drinking that follows every visit.