person
Gavrila Derzhavin
Derzhavin
also: покойник Державин
The great 18th-century Russian court poet, dead for over sixty years by the calendar's fictional date -- the joke of "purkoynik" (the late) Derzhavin celebrating a name-day underscores the calendar's absurdist collapsing of past and present.
Reading notes
- The Alarm Clock's Calendar §172 the late Derzhavin
Gavrila Derzhavin, the great 18th-century Russian court poet, long dead by the calendar's fictional 1882 date; the joke of a deceased classic still "celebrating his name-day" typifies the piece's collapsing of past and present.
- To A. S. Suvorin, 18 December 1888. Moscow. §3 Ring out, bells of victory, rejoice, valiant Russ!
The letter's opening line adapts "Гром победы, раздавайся!" ("Let the thunder of victory resound"), the celebrated opening of Gavrila Derzhavin's 1791 patriotic ode written to celebrate Russia's capture of Ochakov -- later an unofficial Russian anthem. Chekhov deploys the line purely as a mock-heroic flourish to announce that Nikulina has summoned him for a negotiation, not as any substantive reference to Derzhavin or the ode's occasion; see the companion allusions entry for the citation.
- Big Volodya and Little Volodya §11 as Derzhavin blessed Pushkin
An allusion to the (embellished) anecdote of the elderly poet Gavrila Derzhavin publicly blessing the young Alexander Pushkin as his successor at a lyceum examination in 1815 -- invoked here ironically, since what Yagich is "blessing" in Little Volodya is not poetic promise but further sexual conquests.
- Artists' Wives §107 Derzhavin
The great 18th-century Russian court poet, dead since 1816; Zinzaga's claim to be paying a call on him in Lisbon is one of the sketch's absurdist anachronisms.