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Ivan Alekseich Zalikhvatsky
Zalikhvatsky
also: Иван Алексеич Залихватский
The town's blustering police chief, invoked by the postmaster as the invented lover in the rumor he spread to guard his wife's reputation; his surname (from "zalikhvatskiy," swaggering, devil-may-care) marks him as a stock petty-official comic type.
Reading notes
- At the Post Office §11 Ivan Alekseich Zalikhvatsky
The town's blustering police chief, invoked by the postmaster as the invented lover in his protective rumor. His surname, from *zalikhvatskiy* ("devil-may-care," "swaggering"), is a stock comic name for an overbearing petty official, echoing the type satirized in Saltykov-Shchedrin.