Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers

Reading notes

• Poems and Dubia (school-age and disputed juvenilia) §1278 the Society of Dramatic Writers residing in Petersburg

  Refers to the real Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers, of which Chekhov himself was a member; this closing item reports the real 1888 chairmanship succession following S. A. Yuryev's death.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 31 March 1888. Moscow. §18 the agent of the Dramatic Society

  The Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers, the professional body (of which Chekhov was a member) that collected and disbursed playwrights' performance fees; I. M. Kondratyev served as its agent in this transaction.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 11 November 1888. Moscow. §11 I won't enroll you as a member of the Dramatic Society until you tell me to.

  The Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers, already established in this corpus's immediately preceding letter (\S10-11), where Chekhov made the identical point about withholding Suvorin's enrollment pending instruction; this section is a direct continuation of that unresolved thread.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 18 November 1888. Moscow. §5 And you go to the Society to collect your fee with just the same feeling as when you go to look into a fish-trap or a net

  The Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers, already established in this corpus's other Suvorin letters (see's and's headnotes) as the body that collects and distributes playwrights' royalties; no new detail is added here beyond Chekhov's characteristic fondness for the ritual of collecting his fee, likened to checking a fish-trap.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 5 January 1889. Moscow. §9 the Society

  The Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers (institution:society-dramatic-writers), the professional and royalty-collecting body for playwrights, already established in this corpus (see's and's headnotes). Chekhov, already a member since 1887, proposes here to enroll Suvorin.

• To N. A. Leikin, 21 February 1889. Moscow. §5 Society of Dramatic Writers

  The Russian Society of Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers, the professional body that collected and distributed royalties on Chekhov's behalf from productions such as "Ivanov" and "The Bear."

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 2 March 1889. Moscow. §7 my bears

  "Видмеди" (a dialect/Ukrainian-inflected form of "медведи," "bears") is Chekhov's own private joke-word for the Society of Dramatic Writers' provincial royalty collections, which he glosses himself in the same sentence ("that is, the Society of Dramatic Writers, which collects rubles and half-rubles from all over Russia for plays running in the provinces"). Rendered literally as "bears" to preserve the idiom; treated as wordplay on the Society, not a separate entity.

• To N. A. Leikin, 27 March 1889. Moscow. §8 Society of Dramatic Writers

  The Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers, previously established in the corpus; Chekhov notes with some bemusement his election to its Petersburg committee despite having lived in Moscow for eight months.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 17 April 1889. Moscow. §5 elected to the committee of the Society of Dramatic Writers

  Chekhov's real election to the committee of the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers (institution:society-dramatic-writers), reported here straightforwardly; this is the same election that the letter's closing mock-title in \S12-13 ("Permanent member for dramatic affairs of the presence" / "Your chief") plays on.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 17 April 1889. Moscow. §12 Permanent member for dramatic affairs of the presence

  "Непременный член по драматическим делам присутствия" is a mock-bureaucratic flourish parodying the formal titles used by Russian civil-service boards ("присутствие"), not a real office. It is wordplay tied to Chekhov's actual election, reported in \S5, to the committee of the Society of Dramatic Writers (institution:society-dramatic-writers) -- the joke inflates a genuine committee seat into an imaginary imperial sinecure. Paired with the equally mock "Your chief" (\S13) in place of an ordinary signature.

• To N. N. Obolonsky, 23 April 1889. Moscow. §5 there was a committee meeting till one in the morning

  "The committee" is the committee of the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers (institution:society-dramatic-writers), of which Chekhov was a member, per the standard PSS editorial note. Referred to here only as "the committee" without further identification, consistent with Chekhov writing to a friend already familiar with his involvement.

• To I. L. Leontyev, 6 May 1889. Sumy. §11 Society of Dramatic Writers

  The Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers, already established elsewhere in this corpus, whose committee Chekhov had just been elected to. Distinct from the Society for Aid to Stage Performers named in \S7 (institution:society-aid-stage-performers) -- a professional rights body, not a charitable fund.

• To V. A. Tikhonov, 31 May 1889. Sumy. §9 the Society of Dramatic Writers

  The Russian Society of Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers, whose committee Chekhov reports having just joined as a newly minted member.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 20 November 1889. Moscow. §12 At the Society of Dramatic Writers, in my capacity as your direct superior, I glanced at your account. I and your other superior, the secretary Kondratyev, began reckoning and felt a shudder: we owe you more than five hundred rubles for "Tatyana Repina"!

  The Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers (institution:society-dramatic-writers, already established in this corpus), of which Chekhov held an officer's role entitling him to review members' royalty accounts -- hence his joking 'direct superior' framing over Suvorin. "The secretary Kondratyev" is rendered here as, the Society's royalties agent/secretary already tracked in this corpus (first attested, there addressed by Chekhov as 'Ivan Maksimovich'); the corpus's other Kondratyev entities (the unrelated writer;, an unrelated Moscow business contact;, an unresolved Committee figure) are kept distinct, sharing only the surname. The sum reported owed is for royalties on Suvorin's own play "Tatyana Repina" (already established, first attested), which by this date had been running long enough to accrue a substantial royalty balance.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 20 November 1889. Moscow. §13 Yesterday we had a Committee meeting. We are busy with the new charter.

  Continues the same Society of Dramatic Writers business from \S12: the Committee meeting and 'new charter' (устав) reflect the Society's ongoing internal reform efforts of this period, on which Chekhov served in an administrative capacity.

• To I. M. Kondratyev, 2 December 1889. Moscow. §4 Be so good as to enter as a member of the Society

  "записать в члены Общества" (enter as a member of the Society) -- membership in the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers required a nominating member (here Chekhov) and evidence of production, hence the enclosed poster in section 8.

• To V. A. Tikhonov, 3 March 1890. Moscow. §3 the Commission we both sit on

  The reading committee of the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers, on which both Chekhov and Tikhonov served, screening submitted plays for production and prize consideration. The source names it with a bare definite article ("в Комиссии"), assuming Tikhonov's familiarity with the body; no further identification is given in the letter itself.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 4 March 1890. Moscow. §9 секретарю Общества драм писателей… архив общества

  The Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers (institution:society-dramatic-writers), of which both Chekhov and Suvorin were members, collected and disbursed royalty fees for playwrights. Chekhov's instruction that Suvorin mock-solemnly annotate his fee statement ("Most gratifying. I wish it may continue") and return it to be "coated in gum arabic" and archived is an extended joke about bureaucratic self-importance -- gum arabic being an adhesive/varnish used for mounting or preserving documents, here applied absurdly to a routine fee receipt as though it were a treasured keepsake.

• To A. I. Sumbatov, 8 March 1890. Moscow. §3 the Committee

  The reading committee of the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers, on which both Chekhov and Sumbatov served (compare, where the same body is called "the Commission" to Vladimir Tikhonov); the source names it here with a bare definite article ("в Комитете"), assuming Sumbatov's familiarity with it.

• To A. I. Sumbatov, 10–11 March 1890. Moscow. §4 the commission

  The reading committee of the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers, on which Chekhov, Sumbatov, and Tikhonov all served, screening submitted plays. Two days earlier Chekhov had written to Tikhonov urging him to come to Moscow for this same body; here he reports Tikhonov's refusal to Sumbatov and draws the practical conclusion.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 27 March 1890. Moscow. §5 Now about the Society of Dramatic Writers. The question of the advance was raised by me in the Committee.

  The Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers (institution:society-dramatic-writers), on whose Committee Chekhov served. The business here is a hundred-ruble advance owed to Pleshcheyev that has stalled: Chekhov raised the matter with the Committee, which "unanimously fell upon" the Committee member Maykov (-- Apollon Alexandrovich Maikov, a state official and Chekhov's committee colleague, not to be confused with the lyric poet Apollon Nikolayevich Maikov) over the delay. Maykov's defense -- that he never received a letter from Pleshcheyev -- is reported with Chekhov's own skepticism ("put on a bewildered face"); the Committee's resolution was that Chekhov himself would write to Maykov, with Maykov to answer Pleshcheyev directly. Chekhov's closing assurance -- "the treasurer has not yet been born who would bring himself to refuse you so trifling a favor as a hundred-ruble advance" -- is confident reassurance to Pleshcheyev that the sum itself is not in doubt, only the paperwork.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 27 March 1890. Moscow. §6 announce, my dear fellow, that I am leaving Russia until December and thus am temporarily losing my eligibility

  Chekhov is asking Pleshcheyev to relay, at the Society's upcoming elections, that his imminent departure for Sakhalin (he sets out the following month and will be away until the end of 1890) disqualifies him from serving another Committee term, and that he wishes not to be elected -- or, if elected regardless, will "thank them and decline." He follows this with his own recommendation for continuity on the incoming Committee: Nemirovich and Sumbatov, and "even" Alexandrov (-- a Committee-member lawyer who resolves "vexatious matters," surname only, unresolved full identity), ought to be re-elected, on the practical grounds that a Committee that turns over every year never accumulates members experienced enough to know the business well.

• To M. V. Kiseleva, 21 June 1890. Amur pod Pokrovskoy, parokhod "Ermak". §2 A member of the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers

  Chekhov opens the letter referring to himself in the third person by this professional title rather than by name in the salutation -- there is no salutation at all, the body simply begins with his own formal self-designation, a mock-official flourish rather than genuine third-person distance; he was in fact a member of this real Moscow society.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 7 May 1891. Aleksin. §5 the Society of Dramatic Writers

  The Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers, the professional body (of which Chekhov was a member) that collected and distributed performance royalties for its members' plays. Chekhov had asked its agent I. M. Kondratyev for a statement of account shortly before leaving Paris (cf., 23 April/5 May 1891); this letter reports the payout he received on returning to Moscow -- 300 rubles rather than the 200 he had expected.