institution
Red Cross Society
the Red Cross
also: Общество Красного креста, Russian Red Cross Society
A charitable relief organization to which patriotic Russians of means, including writers, sometimes publicly donated fees or honoraria; invoked here as the host's mistaken guess at the source of the poet's "cross."
Reading notes
- The Cross §7 Red Cross Society
The Russian Red Cross Society, a charitable organization to which patriotic donations (including literary fees) were sometimes publicly made -- the host's guess assumes the poet's "cross" is a badge of such a donation.
- A Case from Practice §30 the badge of the Red Cross
The Russian Red Cross Society, the empire's chapter of the international relief organization; wearing its badge alongside an official medal in a formal portrait signals charitable patronage and civic respectability.
- Thieves §32 the Red Cross
Yergunov boasts of holding a Red Cross badge of distinction from his wartime service, part of his larger, none-too-reliable self-mythologizing about a heroic past -- undercut a few lines later when the peasant he claims to have frightened as a devil turns out to be Merik, present in the room and immediately correcting the tall tale.