Table of Ranks

Reading notes

• The Examination for Rank §39 the examination for the first class rank

  Peter the Great's imperial civil-service hierarchy of fourteen ranks; passing the qualifying examination for its lowest tier is the entire stake of the story.

• From the Notebook of Ivan Ivanych (Thoughts and Notes) §53 the Table of Ranks

  Peter the Great's 1722 table fixing fourteen grades of civil, military, and court service. A subordinate's letter to a superior was expected to follow its prescribed forms of address.

• The Captain's Uniform §27 persons of the first four classes

  Peter the Great's Table of Ranks divided all civil, military, and court service into fourteen classes; the top four classes (generals and their civil/court equivalents) wore the most richly decorated uniforms, hence the tailor's hierarchy of who is worth dressing well.

• A Literary Table of Ranks §1 promoted to civil ranks

  The whole piece runs on a single conceit: applying the real imperial Table of Ranks (Tabel o rangakh), Peter the Great's 1722 fourteen-grade hierarchy of civil, military, and court service, to living writers instead of officials. Every heading in this sketch (Privy Councillor, State Councillor, Collegiate Assessor, and so on down to the bottom) names an actual civil rank, in its actual descending order; only the men holding them are Chekhov's invention.

• A Literary Table of Ranks §2 Active Privy Councillors

  Deystvitelny tayny sovetnik (Active Privy Councillor) was Rank 2 of 14 in the real Table -- the second-highest civilian grade attainable (Rank 1, Chancellor, was reserved for a tiny handful of the very greatest dignitaries and almost never filled). Chekhov leaves it a pointed "vacancy": no living Russian writer, in his mock-judgment, merits the very top.

• A Literary Table of Ranks §3 Privy Councillors

  Tayny sovetnik (Privy Councillor), Rank 3, was a genuinely exalted civil grade -- roughly equivalent to a full general in the military table -- carrying the honorific address "Your Excellency." Placing Tolstoy and Goncharov here, immediately below the empty top rank, is Chekhov's highest possible compliment inside the joke's own logic.

• A Literary Table of Ranks §4 Active State Councillors

  Deystvitelny statsky sovetnik (Active State Councillor), Rank 4, was the rank at which a civil official crossed into the senior "general" tier of the service and also carried "Your Excellency" -- a high but clearly secondary grade to Privy Councillor above it.

• A Literary Table of Ranks §5 State Councillors

  Statsky sovetnik (State Councillor), Rank 5, sat just below the "Excellency" threshold, addressed instead as "Your High-Born" (Vashe Vysokorodie) -- solidly senior but a visible step down from the ranks above.

• A Literary Table of Ranks §6 Collegiate Councillors

  Kollezhsky sovetnik (Collegiate Councillor), Rank 6, was a comfortable mid-level civil grade -- the rank at which a career bureaucrat could expect to plateau -- addressed as "Your High Nobility" (Vashe Vysokoblagorodie).

• A Literary Table of Ranks §7 Court Councillors

  Nadvorny sovetnik (Court Councillor), Rank 7, was the grade at which hereditary nobility ceased to be automatically conferred by civil service alone under the Table's later rules -- a meaningful line in the real bureaucracy, here simply another rung for a crowded field of critics and journalists.

• A Literary Table of Ranks §8 Collegiate Assessors

  Kollezhsky asessor (Collegiate Assessor), Rank 8, was a widely-held middling grade, notoriously the rank of Gogol's put-upon clerks and Chekhov's own comic officials elsewhere -- solidly respectable but no longer close to the honorific tiers above.

• A Literary Table of Ranks §9 Titular Councillors

  Titulyarny sovetnik (Titular Councillor), Rank 9, is the single most famous grade in Russian literature -- the rank of Akaky Akakievich in Gogol's "The Overcoat" and of countless downtrodden clerks in the realist tradition -- a byword for genteel poverty and thwarted ambition.

• A Literary Table of Ranks §10 Collegiate Secretaries

  Kollezhsky sekretar (Collegiate Secretary), Rank 10, marked the upper edge of the service's lower half -- respectable clerical rank, but with a visibly steep further climb to any of the "Excellency" grades.

• A Literary Table of Ranks §11 Provincial Secretaries

  Gubernsky sekretar (Provincial Secretary), Rank 12 in the real Table (Chekhov's sketch, like several period sources, omits or elides Rank 11, Ship's Secretary, a naval-only grade with almost no civil equivalent), was junior clerical rank, several full grades below anything carrying an honorific address.

• A Literary Table of Ranks §12 Collegiate Registrars

  Kollezhsky registrator (Collegiate Registrar), Rank 14, was the lowest rank in the entire Table of Ranks that still conferred any status at all -- the very bottom of the civil-service ladder proper, one step above having no rank whatsoever.

• The Newest Letter-Writer's Guide §14 Table of Ranks

  Peter the Great's 1722 table fixing 14 grades of civil, military, and court service; a letter's correct form of address to a superior depended on the addressee's grade, which is exactly the bureaucratic etiquette this sketch parodies.

• A First-Class Passenger §6 действительного статского советника

  "Full state councillor" (deystvitelny statsky sovetnik) was the fourth of the fourteen civil ranks in the Table of Ranks, equivalent to a major-general in military rank -- a genuinely senior civil-service grade, addressed as "Your Excellency," underscoring that Krikunov's professional standing was real and substantial, not imagined.

• A Personage §5 provincial secretary

  Gubernsky sekretar, a middling-low civil rank (13th class) in Peter the Great's Table of Ranks -- the very unglamorous reality Misha talks himself out of seeing, insisting the inspector is nonetheless "a personage."

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 4 January 1886. Moscow. §5 collegiate registrars

  The lowest rank (14th class) of the Table of Ranks in the Imperial Russian civil service -- the stock figure of the downtrodden petty official that filled the humor magazines of the day, including Alexander's own stories, which Chekhov here urges him to abandon as a stale, overworked theme.

• To V. V. Bilibin, 18 January 1886. Moscow. §8 future State Councillor

  "д с с" abbreviates deystvitel'nyi statskii sovetnik ("actual state councillor"), a senior civil rank (class IV of the Table of Ranks) roughly equivalent to a major-general; Chekhov jokingly promotes Leikin's secretary Bilibin to this eventual rank while buttering him up over dinner.

• To V. V. Bilibin, 18 January 1886. Moscow. §9 ranks of the fourth and fifth class

  Under the Table of Ranks, classes IV-V were senior civil-service grades (equivalent to general officers); Chekhov mocks Leikin's habit of bragging that his humor-magazine contributors held such official titles, as if literary standing needed bureaucratic validation.

• Captions for Drawings §37 Handwriting by Rank, or the Metamorphoses of Karambolev's Signature

  The joke title plays on the Table of Ranks, the imperial civil-service hierarchy that structured Russian bureaucratic and social life; a clerk's handwriting/signature supposedly changes as his rank rises.

• The Wedding with the General (a story) §86 Table of Ranks

  Peter the Great's imperial hierarchy of civil, military, and court service; Nyunin's pseudo-technical explanation of how a rear admiral 'equals' a civil actual state councillor is the story's central satirical joke about status-shopping.

• The Vaudeville §6 actual state councillor

  A high civil rank (4th class) in the Table of Ranks, roughly equivalent to a major-general -- explaining why Yasnoserdtsev's excitement at becoming the father-in-law of one is so extravagant.

• The Vaudeville §49 your high excellency

  The formal honorific ("vashe vysokorodie") owed to an official of Kleshchev's rank under the Table of Ranks; Klochkov's flustered plan to insert or drop it shows how anxiously the guests police even the vaudeville's forms of address.

• The Exclamation Mark §12 a rank of the tenth class

  The Table of Ranks (Tabel o rangakh), Peter the Great's fourteen-grade hierarchy governing civil, military, and court service, by which every Russian official's status, privileges, and forms of address were fixed. The story's entire anxiety -- a man's worth measured by rank versus by genuine understanding -- is staged within this hierarchy.

• A Woman's Happiness §4 статские советники

  Stat­sky sovetnik (state councillor) is the 5th of the fourteen civil ranks in Peter the Great's Table of Ranks, a solidly senior mid-level civil-service grade Probkin invokes as the ceiling of what he and his companion might attain only after a lifetime's service.

• A Woman's Happiness §6 губернский секретарь

  Gubernsky sekretar' (provincial secretary) is the 12th and near-lowest of the fourteen civil ranks, the rung Probkin himself occupies -- his complaint contrasts a rank 'earned with blood and sweat' against one his interlocutor's wife acquired instantly by marriage.