Order of the Lion and the Sun

Reading notes

• The Commerce Counsellor's Daughter §11 the Lion and Sun

  The Persian Order of the Lion and the Sun, a decoration the Qajar shahs distributed generously to foreign merchants and officials; Mekhanizmov's boast of holding it is a stock joke about honors bought rather than earned.

• The Lion and the Sun §6 the Persian Order of the Lion and the Sun

  The Order of the Lion and the Sun (Nishan-e Shir-o-Khorshid) was a real decoration of the Persian (Qajar) state, awarded not only to Persian subjects but liberally to foreign merchants, diplomats, and officials with whom the Shah's government had dealings. Because it was comparatively easy for a foreigner to obtain -- through diplomatic courtesy rather than merit -- it became a stock target of Russian satire on vanity and cheap honors, exactly the appetite Chekhov gives Kutsyn here: a provincial official who already pads his own chest with a manufactured trinket (the crossed rifle-and-guitar charm) and now schemes to add a genuine, if easily bought, foreign decoration to it.

• The Lion and the Sun §41 the Lion and the Sun on his breast

  The ending confirms that Kutsyn did in fact obtain the Persian decoration he angled for across the story -- the comedy is that possessing it satisfies him for barely a year before the same restless vanity reasserts itself, now fixed on a different foreign order entirely.

• The Mysteries of One Hundred and Forty-Four Catastrophes §6 Cavalier of the Order of the Lion and the Sun

  A real Persian (Qajar) decoration, freely handed out to foreigners including Russian merchants and officials; its grandiose name makes it a favorite target of Russian satirists mocking vanity and cheap honors.