Augustin Vrzal

A Czech translator and Slavist who wrote to Chekhov via the bookshop of \textit{Novoye Vremya} requesting biographical information, evidently in preparation for a Czech translation of Chekhov's stories. This 14 August 1891 letter -- apparently Chekhov's first extant letter to Vrzal -- is Chekhov's reply, a compact autobiographical sketch: birth in 1860 in Taganrog; a grandfather who had been a serf and bought his family's freedom before the Emancipation; a father in trade; schooling at the Taganrog gymnasium and the medical faculty of Moscow University; the start of his literary career in 1879 and the resulting story collections (\textit{Pyostrye rasskazy}, \textit{V sumerkakh}, \textit{Rasskazy}, \textit{Khmurye lyudi}); his plays; the 1888 Pushkin Prize; and the 1890 journey across Siberia to Sakhalin. Chekhov closes by proposing an exchange -- his forthcoming Sakhalin book for Vrzal's translation of his stories.