Hereditary Honorary Citizen

Reading notes

• The Mask §112 hereditary honorary citizen

  Potomstvennyi pochetnyi grazhdanin, a hereditary civic rank created in 1832 for wealthy merchants and industrialists, exempting them from certain taxes and corporal punishment and marking a status just below nobility -- Pyatigorov's real source of power over the 'intelligentsia.'

• Visiting Cards §2 Потомственный почетный гражданин

  Hereditary Honorary Citizen, a civic rank below the nobility created in 1832 for well-off merchants and professionals; printing it on a calling card, under a count's coronet no less, is the story's opening joke about status borrowed from a rank the bearer does not actually hold.

• The Crow §50 hereditary honorary citizen

  Potomstvennyi pochetnyi grazhdanin, a civic rank just below the nobility; Filenkov invokes his father's status to justify dressing above his own station as a mere clerk -- the claim the drunken finale will mock.