concept
"Zulus" (зулусы) -- ethnic slur used as ironic slang
Zulu slur
also: зулусы, Zulus
Renders the period ethnic slur "зулусы" (zulusy, "Zulus"), here used by Chekhov not of actual Zulu people but as ironic, semi-affectionate slang for the staff of Suvorin's newspaper "Novoye Vremya" -- "clever Zulus," i.e., clever savages, playing on the paper's reputation for reactionary and jingoistic positions. The word draws on the same casual, unexamined period vocabulary of racial othering found elsewhere in Chekhov's correspondence; it is not addressed to any Zulu person and has no bearing on actual Zulu people, but is preserved untranslated-in-spirit and unsoftened per this corpus's editorial policy of presenting documented period usage factually rather than suppressing or euphemizing it -- flagged here for context, not endorsed.
Reading notes
- To Al. P. Chekhov, 7–8 September 1887. Moscow. §4 Zulus
Renders the period ethnic slur "зулусы" (zulusy), used here not of any actual Zulu person but as Chekhov's ironic slang for the Novoye Vremya staff -- "clever savages" -- playing on the paper's reputation for reactionary, jingoistic positions.
- A Dreary Story §138 a Zulu
Renders "зулус" (zulus, "a Zulu"), used by the narrator as a figure for the sheer incomprehensibility of Gnekker's presence at his table -- not a comment on any actual Zulu person, but a period commonplace invoking a distant, exoticized ethnic other as shorthand for total alienness. Preserved untranslated-in-spirit and unsoftened per corpus policy of presenting documented period usage factually; compare's other attestations in the corpus (the letters).