institution
Moscow City Duma
the Duma
also: Дума, городская дума, gorodskaya duma
Moscow's elected municipal council, responsible for city services and public works; the narrator boasts of attending its sessions and reflexively shouting to refer every question to committee, despite knowing nothing about the city's actual affairs.
Reading notes
- To L. S. Mizinova, 11 January 1891. Petersburg. §3 Duma clerk!
Mizinova worked as a clerk for the Moscow city assessment office, a body under the Moscow City Duma; Chekhov's mock-formal salutation plays on her day job, and he returns to the same joke at \S10 ("You weren't put behind the assessor's desk...").
- In Moscow §10 the Duma
Moscow's elected municipal council, which handled city services and public works; the narrator's boast of attending its sessions while knowing nothing about the city underscores his empty civic posturing.