Titular Councillor

Reading notes

• The Album §1 Titular Councillor

  A civil rank (class VIII) in the Table of Ranks -- a modest mid-level grade, here held by the toadying subordinate Kraterov.

• The Diplomat §2 the titular councillor

  A civil rank (class VIII) in the Table of Ranks, a modest mid-level grade in the Imperial Russian civil service -- the story frames its dead woman first through her husband's bureaucratic status, not her own name.

• Small Fry §46 titular councillor

  Class IX (not VIII) in the Table of Ranks -- Nevyrazimov names it here as the ceiling of his own career, one rank above his likely current grade, unreachable no matter how he tries.

• At the Cemetery §9 Titular Councillor

  A civil rank (class VIII) in Peter the Great's Table of Ranks, a modest mid-level grade in the Imperial Russian civil service -- here the dry official title carved on a gravestone, the sum of a life the narrator immediately deflates.

• New Year's Great Martyrs §8 Titular Councillor

  A civil rank (class VIII) in Peter the Great's Table of Ranks -- a modest, mid-level grade, neither humble clerk nor eminent official. Sinkleteev's rank marks him as exactly the sort of man obligated to call on a long list of superiors, relatives, and patrons, yet without the standing to excuse himself from any of them.

• Both Better §15 titular councillor

  Class IX in the Table of Ranks, a low-to-middling civil grade; that none of the narrator's colleagues had even reached this rank underlines how far beneath his wife's circle they stand.

• Papasha §71 Titular

  A civil rank in Peter the Great's Table of Ranks; class VIII (titular councillor) was a modest mid-level civil-service grade, here held by the poorly paid arithmetic teacher, underscoring the social gap between him and the bribe Papasha offers.

• Before the Wedding §6 titular councillor

  A low civil-service rank, ninth of fourteen in the Table of Ranks -- Gogol's downtrodden clerk Akaky Akakievich in "The Overcoat" holds the same rank, an ironic echo the mother's tirade doesn't intend.

• To A. S. Lazarev, 1 November 1889. Moscow. §11 titular-councillor

  A modest mid-level civil-service rank (class VIII) in the Imperial Table of Ranks; Chekhov uses "titular-councillor tone" as shorthand for a flat, petty-bureaucratic register he urges Lazarev to drop from his characters.

• Psychopaths §3 Titular Councillor

  The ninth of the fourteen ranks in Peter the Great's Table of Ranks, a modest civil-service grade that carried no hereditary nobility -- a favorite Chekhov marker of harmless, faintly ridiculous bureaucratic pretension.

• A Story Hard to Give a Title To §3 titular

  Titular Councillor, class VIII in the Table of Ranks -- a modest mid-level civil-service grade, here named among the ranks Ottyagaev claims not to feel inferior to.

• The Lawyer's Novel §3 Titular Councillor

  Titulyarny sovetnik, the ninth of fourteen ranks in the Table of Ranks -- a modest civil-service grade, making Barabanova the daughter of a minor official rather than a person of real social standing.

• At the Baths §144 a titular councillor too

  Class VIII in Peter the Great's Table of Ranks, a modest mid-level civil grade -- Katavasov's rank underlines that his learning and title did not, in Makar Tarasych's verdict, add up to sense.

• Vint §102 titular councillor

  Titular Councillor (titulyarny sovetnik), class VIII in the Table of Ranks -- Nedoyekhov's error is throwing off a low-ranked "titular" card when he should have judged from the higher "actual" (Actual State Councillor) rank in play.